The conflict in Yemen, which escalated in 2015, has displaced some three million people. Tens of thousands of those forced to leave their homes are in the region of Abs, Hajjah governorate, close to the frontlines and the border with Saudi Arabia.

Abs is also the epicentre of the cholera outbreak that has caused more than 1,600 deaths and affected more than 269,000 people since late March 2017. MSF began supporting Abs Hospital, the main medical facility in the western part of Hajjah governorate, in 2015.

On 15 August 2016, an airstrike hit the hospital, killing 19 people and wounding 24 others. MSF withdrew its staff but resumed activities at the hospital in November 2016. Since the outbreak of cholera, MSF has doubled the scale of its emergency response in Abs district, where teams have treated more than 12,200 patients with suspected cholera and acute watery diarrhoea.

Fear of being caught up in the fighting has led many displaced people in Abs to set up informal settlements in remote locations with no public services. MSF is operating mobile clinics offering regular consultations, emergency treatment, antenatal care and mental healthcare to people living in these settlements, where sanitation is poor and water is scarce. http://www.msf.org/en/article/photo-gallery-abs-reflection-yemen-crisis

The manipulation of news and the distortion of reality are the most powerful weapons in the hands of power. They can make a whole reality disappear.

A child dies in Yemen every ten minutes from preventable causes, UNICEF reported in June. These deaths are only part of a humanitarian catastrophe, among the worst in the world, including a rampaging cholera epidemic, to which the witness of the overwhelming majority of the West’s warmongering Goebbelist media pretends to be deaf, mute, and blind.

Nevertheless, information is accessible. There are sporadic exceptions to the conspiracy of silence in officialdom and the media. The week of July 10, The Independent published in the “Voices” section the appeal of Wael Ibrahim, an aid worker in Yemen:

“It is going to take years to restore any infrastructure like health services, and rewire the city [Sana’a] for electricity. We need more people to talk about Yemen.” For the rest of the story go HERE

February 24, 2015
TEHRAN (FNA)- Iraq’s army has shot down two British planes as they were carrying weapons for the ISIL terrorists in Al-Anbar province, a senior lawmaker disclosed on Monday.
“The Iraqi Parliament’s National Security and Defense Committee has access to the photos of both planes that are British and have crashed while they were carrying weapons for the ISIL,” Head of the committee Hakem al-Zameli said, according to a Monday report of the Arabic-language information center of the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq.
He said the Iraqi parliament has asked London for explanations in this regard.
The senior Iraqi legislator further unveiled that the government in Baghdad is receiving daily reports from people and security forces in al-Anbar province on numerous flights by the US-led coalition planes that airdrop weapons and supplies for ISIL in terrorist-held areas.
The Iraqi lawmaker further noted the cause of such western aids to the terrorist group, and explained that the US prefers a chaotic situation in Anbar Province which is near the cities of Karbala and Baghdad as it does not want the ISIL crisis to come to an end.
Earlier today, a senior Iraqi provincial official lashed out at the western countries and their regional allies for supporting Takfiri terrorists in Iraq, revealing that US and Israeli-made weapons have been discovered from the areas purged of ISIL terrorists.

“We have discovered weapons made in the US, European countries and Israel from the areas liberated from ISIL’s control in Al-Baqdadi region,” the Al-Ahad news website quoted Head of Al-Anbar Provincial Council Khalaf Tarmouz as saying.
He noted that the weapons made by the European countries and Israel were discovered from the terrorists in the Eastern parts of the city of Ramadi.
Al-Zameli had also disclosed in January that the anti-ISIL coalition’s planes have dropped weapons and foodstuff for the ISIL in Salahuddin, Al-Anbar and Diyala provinces.
Al-Zameli underlined that the coalition is the main cause of ISIL’s survival in Iraq.
“There are proofs and evidence for the US-led coalition’s military aid to ISIL terrorists through air(dropped cargoes),” he told FNA in January.
He noted that the members of his committee have already proved that the US planes have dropped advanced weaponry, including anti-aircraft weapons, for the ISIL, and that it has set up an investigation committee to probe into the matter.
“The US drops weapons for the ISIL on the excuse of not knowing about the whereabouts of the ISIL positions and it is trying to distort the reality with its allegations.
He noted that the committee had collected the data and the evidence provided by eyewitnesses, including Iraqi army officers and the popular forces, and said, “These documents are given to the investigation committee … and the necessary measures will be taken to protect the Iraqi airspace.”
Also in January, another senior Iraqi legislator reiterated that the US-led coalition is the main cause of ISIL’s survival in Iraq.
“The international coalition is only an excuse for protecting the ISIL and helping the terrorist group with equipment and weapons,” Jome Divan, who is member of the al-Sadr bloc in the Iraqi parliament, said.
He said the coalition’s support for the ISIL is now evident to everyone, and continued, “The coalition has not targeted ISIL’s main positions in Iraq.”
In late December, Iraqi Parliamentary Security and Defense Commission MP disclosed that a US plane supplied the ISIL terrorist organization with arms and ammunition in Salahuddin province.
MP Majid al-Gharawi stated that the available information pointed out that US planes are supplying ISIL organization, not only in Salahuddin province, but also other provinces, Iraq TradeLink reported.
He added that the US and the international coalition are “not serious in fighting against the ISIL organization, because they have the technological power to determine the presence of ISIL gunmen and destroy them in one month”.
Gharawi added that “the US is trying to expand the time of the war against the ISIL to get guarantees from the Iraqi government to have its bases in Mosul and Anbar provinces.”
Salahuddin security commission also disclosed that “unknown planes threw arms and ammunition to the ISIL gunmen Southeast of Tikrit city”.
Also in Late December, a senior Iraqi lawmaker raised doubts about the seriousness of the anti-ISIL coalition led by the US, and said that the terrorist group still received aids dropped by unidentified aircraft.
“The international coalition is not serious about air strikes on ISIL terrorists and is even seeking to take out the popular (voluntary) forces from the battlefield against the Takfiris so that the problem with ISIL remains unsolved in the near future,” Nahlah al-Hababi told FNA.
“The ISIL terrorists are still receiving aids from unidentified fighter jets in Iraq and Syria,” she added.
Hababi said that the coalition’s precise airstrikes are launched only in those areas where the Kurdish Pishmarga forces are present, while military strikes in other regions are not so much precise.
In late December, the US-led coalition dropped aids to the Takfiri militants in an area North of Baghdad.
Field sources in Iraq told al-Manar that the international coalition airplanes dropped aids to the terrorist militants in Balad, an area which lies in Salahuddin province North of Baghdad.
In October, a high-ranking Iranian commander also slammed the US for providing aid supplies to ISIL, adding that the US claims that the weapons were mistakenly airdropped to ISIL were untrue.
“The US and the so-called anti-ISIL coalition claim that they have launched a campaign against this terrorist and criminal group – while supplying them with weapons, food and medicine in Jalawla region (a town in Diyala Governorate, Iraq). This explicitly displays the falsity of the coalition’s and the US’ claims,” Deputy Chief of Staff of the Iranian Armed Forces Brigadier General Massoud Jazayeri said.
The US claimed that it had airdropped weapons and medical aid to Kurdish fighters confronting the ISIL in Kobani, near the Turkish border in Northern Syria.
The US Defense Department said that it had airdropped 28 bundles of weapons and supplies, but one of them did not make it into the hands of the Kurdish fighters.
Video footage later showed that some of the weapons that the US airdropped were taken by ISIL militants.
The Iranian commander insisted that the US had the necessary intelligence about ISIL’s deployment in the region and that their claims to have mistakenly airdropped weapons to them are as unlikely as they are untrue. Source

American aircraft dropped weapons to ISIS, says MP

January 4, 2015 by Amre Sarhan

(IraqiNews.com) On Saturday, MP Majid al-Ghraoui said that, an American aircraft dropped a load of weapons and equipment into the hands of the ISIS group militants in southeast of Tikrit, located in Salahuddin province.

MP Majid al-Ghraoui, the member of the Security and Defense Committee in the Parliament, said: “The information that has reached us in the security and defense committee indicates that an American aircraft dropped a load of weapons and equipment to the ISIS group militants at the area of al-Dour in the province of Salahuddin.”

He added, “The committee will set a meeting within the next few days to follow up on that incident,” pointing out that, “This incident is continuously happening and has also occurred in some other regions.”

“The U.S. is trying to obtain more benefits and privileges from the government to set military bases in Iraq,” Ghraoui said.

Noteworthy, the security committee in Salahuddin Provincial Council announced today, that unidentified air crafts dropped weapons and gear to the ISIS group elements in southeast of Tikrit.

Unknown aircrafts drop weapons to ISIS southeast of Tikrit

January 3, 2015 by Abdelhak Mamoun

(IraqiNews.com) On Saturday, the Security Committee in the Council of Salahuddin province revealed that unidentified aircrafts dropped weapons and equipment for ISIS southeast of Tikrit, indicating that there are countries that want to keep Iraq under the ISIS occupation.

Committee Chairman Jassim Al Jabara said in an interview for IraqiNews.com , “Our sources of intelligence received reports that unidentified aircrafts dropped weapons and munitions to the ISIS organization near Dour district (25 km south-east of Tikrit).”

Jabara added “This is not the first time ; an unknown aircraft dropped weapons and munitions to ISIS in Yathrib area south of Tikrit, several areas in Salahuddin, and in Mosul,” adding that, “We do not know to which source those aircrafts belong yet.”

Jabara continued, “There are countries that seek to keep Iraq under the ISIS occupation, and want to keep terrorism in Iraq by perpetuating the war through the fuel prices, and by providing terrorists with weapons and gear, after the victories achieved by security forces and the people,” pointing out that, “Our battle continues and its goal is victory.” Source

I won’t go into them right now. But it is well known they have covered up many things over the years.

This however reaches, deep into the hearts and lives of everyone the world over.

This was published on October 2, 2014

Citizens the world over watch this.

The US could have cut funding to terrorist groups but instead prevented all information from going public.

The Question everyone must ask, is why was all the extremely valuable information kept hidden?

My only thought is is that the US government does not want the wars to end.

Why the cover up?

With all the information that was provided to the US government, many men,

women and children, would still be alive and well today.

That includes many Military personnel, from many different countries.

Many of the people who were injured and maimed, would be whole today.

This is a rather long interview, but is definitely worth watching.

Everyone in the world should listen to what Scott has to say.

He certainly is telling the truth.

Published on Oct 2, 2014

Discussion of the book SHELL GAME A Military Whistleblowing Report to the U.S. Congress Exposing the Betrayal and Cover-Up by the U.S. Government of the Union Bank of Switzerland-Terrorist Threat Finance Connection to Booz Allen Hamilton and U.S. Central Command

He received a Direct Commission as an Officer, held a Top Secret/Sensitive Compartmentalized Information (TS/SCI) security clearance, and worked in the highest levels of international counterterrorism in Washington DC and MacDill Air Force Base in Tampa, Florida. He has worked at U.S. Special Operations Command, U.S. Central Command, the State Department Coordinator for Counterterrorism, and other government agencies. He served in the G.W. Bush Administration from 2003 to 2008, and was a Social Science Research Fellow at the Heritage Foundation. His writings and lectures seek to enhance global awareness and understanding of modern psychological warfare, the international intelligence.

Barack Hussein Obama, David Cameron, Nicolas Sarkozy and Stephen Harper have breached the Geneva Convention with the willful planning, preparing and initiating of a war of aggression against Libya. Guess who was right there with them? Or as they say standing behind them.

Guess who hated _Muammar_Gaddafi with a passion?

Plus he didn’t want to use the US dollar for oil trade.

Saddam also did not want to use the US dollar for oil trade.

Russia again does not want to use the US dollar for oil trade.

It is getting to a point it is all to clear, that anyone who does not want to use the US petro dollar for trade is condemned.

The become the evil Satan.

In the US AIPAC is the main offender, when it comes to forming US policies.

So when it comes to foreign policy guess who tells congress what to do?

They have many of the same type of organization in other countries as well.

All of them should be shut down, never to see the light of day again.

All of their so called Charities in other countries should also be eliminated as well.

The money usually never goes to where they say it goes anyway.

All aid to Israel should be stopped.

It is time they stood on their own two feet.

They was a great deal of that aid on weapons instead of taking care of their people.

Even much of the money that was earmarked for survivors of the Holocaust, never got to the people who should have received it.

Israel and the US have waged wars in many other countries and supported some horrific dictators as well.

Hunt long and hard enough, all that information can be found.

Much of it is in my archives.

If the US is waging war, you can be certain Israel is right there with them.

So for all of those in the EU get educated and do not fall for all the lies.

All of your people will suffer tremendously.

They are already suffering from Austerity and fall out due to Sanctions.

So take a long hard look and find the truth before it is too late.

It is up to you to force your leaders to Stop following the US/Israeli agenda.

Anyone who promotes war based on lies and propaganda is the bad guy.

Happy hunting.

A bit of History to ponder.

The Puppet Masters Behind Georgia President Saakashvili
August 21, 2008

By F. William Engdahl
The controversy over the Georgian surprise military attacks on South Ossetia and Abkhazia on 8.8.08 makes a closer look at the controversial Georgian President and his puppet masters important. An examination shows 41 year old Mikhail Saakashvili to be a ruthless and corrupt totalitarian who is tied to not only the US NATO establishment, but also to the Israeli military and intelligence establishment. The famous ‘Rose Revolution of November 2003 that forced the ageing Edouard Shevardnadze from power and swept the then 36 year old US university graduate into power was run and financed by the US State Department, the Soros Foundations, and agencies tied to the Pentagon and US intelligence community.

Mihkail Saakashvili was deliberately placed in power in one of the most sophisticated US regime change operations, using ostensibly private NGOs (Non Governmental Organizations) to create an atmosphere of popular protest against the existing regime of former Soviet Foreign Minister Edouard Shevardnadze, who was no longer useful to Washington when he began to make a deal with Moscow over energy pipelines and privatizations.

Saakashvili was brought to power in a US-engineered coup run on the ground by US-funded NGO’s, in an application of a new method of US destabilization of regimes it considered hostile to its foreign policy agenda. The November 24 2003 Wall Street Journal explicitly credited the toppling of Shevardnadze’s regime to the operations of “a raft of non-governmental organizations . . . supported by American and other Western foundations.” These NGOs, said the Journal, had “spawned a class of young, English-speaking intellectuals hungry for pro-Western reforms” who were instrumental laying the groundwork for a bloodless coup.

Coup by NGO

But there is more. The NGOs were coordinated by the US Ambassador to Georgia, Richard Miles, who had just arrived in Tbilisi fresh from success in orchestrating the CIA-backed toppling of Slobodan Milosevic in Belgrade, using the same NGOs. Miles, who is believed to be an undercover intelligence specialist, supervised the Saakashvili coup.

It involved US billionaire George Soros’ Open Society Georgia Foundation. It involved the Washington-based Freedom House whose chairman was former CIA chief James Woolsey. It involved generous financing from the US Congress-financed National Endowment for Democracy, an agency created by Ronald Reagan in the 1980’s to “do privately what the CIA used to do,” namely coups against regimes the US Government finds unfriendly.

George Soros’ foundations have been forced to leave numerous eastern European countries including Russia as well as China after the 1989 student Tiananmen Square uprising. Soros is also the financier together with the US State Department of the Human Rights Watch, a US-based and run propaganda arm of the entire NGO apparatus of regime coups such as Georgia and Ukraine’s 2004 Orange Revolution. Some analysts believe Soros is a high-level operative of the US State Department or intelligence services using his private foundations as cover.

The US State Department funded the Georgia Liberty Institute headed by Saakashvili, US approved candidate to succeed the no-longer cooperative Shevardnadze. The Liberty Institute in turn created “Kmara!” which translates “Enough!” According to a BBC report at the time, Kmara! Was organized in spring of 2003 when Saakashvili along with hand-picked Georgia student activists were paid by the Soros Foundation to go to Belgrade to learn from the US-financed Otpor activists that toppled Milosevic. They were trained in Gene Sharp’s “non-violence as a method of warfare” by the Belgrade Center for Nonviolent Resistance.

Saakashvili as mafioso President

Once he was in place in January 2004 as Georgia’s new President, Saakashvili proceeded to pack the regime with his cronies and kinsmen. The death of Zurab Zhvania, his prime minister in February, 2005, remains a mystery. The official version—poisoning by faulty gas heater—was adopted by American FBI investigators within two weeks of the killing. That has never seemed credible to those familiar with Georgia’s gangland slayings, crime, and other manifestations of social decay. Zhvania’s death was followed closely by a functionary of the Premier’s apparat, Georgi Khelashvili, who allegedly shot himself the day after his chief’s demise. The head of Zhvania’s research staff was later found dead as well.

Figures allied with Saakashvili reportedly had a hand in the premier’s death. Russian journalist Marina Perevozkina quoted Gia Khurashvili, a Georgian economist. Prior to the fatal incident, Mr. Khurashvili had published an article in Resonans newspaper opposing the privatization and sale of Georgia’s main gas pipeline. Ten days before the prime minister’s body was found, Khurashvili was attacked and his editor-in-chief—citing pressure from ‘security service’ figures he refused to name—issued him a warning.

The late premier’s position on the pipeline issue was believed the direct reason for the murder of Zhvania. Zhvania’s brother, Georgi, also told Perevozkina that not long before Zhvania’s death he received a warning that someone was preparing to kill his brother. Saakashvili was reportedly livid when the US State Department invited Zhvania to Washington to win a Freedom Medal from the US Government’s National Democratic Institute. Saakashvili tolerates no rivals for power it seems.

Saakashvili, who cleverly marketed himself as “anti-corruption,” appointed several of his family members to lucrative posts in government, giving one of his brothers a position as chief adviser on domestic issues to the Baku-Ceyhan Pipeline project, backed by British Petroleum and other oil multinationals.

Since coming to power in 2004 with US aid, Saakashvili has led a policy of mass-scale arrests, imprisonment, torture and deepened corruption. Saakashvili has presided over the creation of a de facto one-party state, with a dummy opposition occupying a tiny portion of seats in the parliament, and this public servant is building a Ceaucescu-style palace for himself on the outskirts of Tbilisi. According to the magazine, Civil Georgia (Mar. 22, 2004) until 2005, the salaries of Saakashvili and many of his ministers were reportedly paid by the NGO network of New York-based currency speculator Soros—along with the United Nations Development Program.

Israel US military train Georgian military

The current military assault on South Ossetia and Abkhazia, in violation of Saakashvili’s pledge to seek a diplomatic not military solution to the territorial disputes, is backed by US and Israeli military “advisers.” Israel’s Haaretz newspaper reported that on August 10, Georgian Minister of Reintegration, Temur Yakobshvili, “praised the Israel Defense Forces for its role in training Georgian troops and said Israel should be proud of its military might, in an interview with Army Radio. ‘Israel should be proud of its military which trained Georgian soldiers,’ Yakobashvili told Army Radio in Hebrew, referring to a private Israeli group Georgia had hired.”

One of the targets of Russian bombs near Tbilisi was, according to IsraelNN.com, “a Georgian military plant in which Israeli experts are upgrading jet fighters for the Georgian military… Russian fighter jets bombed runways inside the plant, located near Tbilisi, where Israeli security firm Elbit is in charge of upgrading Georgian SU-25 jets.”

The reported 1,000 Israeli military advisers in Georgia were not alone. On July 15, the Reuters news wire carried the following report: “VAZIANI, Georgia – One thousand U.S. troops began a military training exercise called “Immediate Response 2008,” in Georgia on Tuesday against a backdrop of growing friction between Georgia and neighboring Russia. The two-week exercise was taking place at the Vaziani military base near the capital Tbilisi, which was a Russian air force base until Russian forces withdrew at the start of this decade under a European arms reduction agreement… Georgia has a 2,000-strong contingent supporting the U.S.-led coalition in Iraq, and Washington provides training and equipment to the Georgian military. The United States is an ally of Georgia and has irritated Russia by backing Tbilisi’s bid to join the NATO military alliance… “The main purpose of these exercises is to increase the cooperation and partnership between U.S. and Georgian forces,” Brig. Gen. William B. Garrett, commander of the U.S. military’s Southern European Task Force, told reporters.”

With Russia openly backing and training the indigenous military in South Ossetia and Abkhazia to maintain Russian presence in the region, especially since the US-backed pro-NATO Saakashvili regime took power in 2004, the Caucasus is rapidly coming to resemble Spain in the Civil War from 1936-1939 where the Soviet Union, Nazi Germany and others poured money and weapons and volunteers into Spain in a devastating war that was a precursor to the Second World War.

In a curious footnote to the actual launch of military fighting on the opening day of the Olympics when Putin, George W. Bush and many world leaders were in Beijing far away, is a report in IsraelNN.com by Gl Ronen, stating that “The Georgian move against South Ossetia was motivated by political considerations having to do with Israel and Iran, according to Nfc. Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili decided to assert control over the breakaway region in order to force Israel to reconsider its decision to cut back its support for Georgia’s military.”

Ronen added, “Russian and Georgian media reported several days ago that Israel decided to stop its support for Georgia after Moscow made it clear to Jerusalem and Washington that Russia would respond to continued aid for Georgia by selling advanced anti-aircraft systems to Syria and Iran.” Israel plans to get oil and gas from the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline from the Caspian.

Although as of this writing Russian President Medvedev has announced Russia is halting its military response against Georgian targets, the situation is anything but stable. The insistence of Washington in bringing Georgia into its geopolitical sphere and backing an unstable regime around Mikhail Saakashvili may well have been the straw which broke the Russian camel’s patience if not his back.

Whether oil pipeline disputes or Russian challenges to Israel are the proximate trigger for Saakashvili’s dangerous game, it is clear that the volatile Georgian and his puppet masters may have entered a game where no one will be able to control the outcome. Source

As the southeast of Ukraine is struggling to survive humanitarian catastrophe, the number of civilian casualties in the conflict zone, according to UN figures, has already exceeded 2000. Could that be enough to make the West realize that they are supporting – war criminals.

Ukraine Crisis: Donbass. Chronicle of Genocide. Banned on TV / Донбасс. Хроника геноцида. [ENG SUB]
Aug 18, 2014
Extensive war crimes in Donbass committed by Poroshenko and his army of murderers from July 27 to August 14, 2014. Kiev’s warmongers/Zionists continue genocide of civilian population of Donetsk and Luhansk People’s Republics. Most of the footage and interviews you will see in this documentary film have never been shown on mainstream media of any country including Russia and Ukraine.
Everyone should watch this documentary. You will see the people the Government of Kiev are killing. This is the side of the war, you will never see on the mainstream media. This is only a small part, of what has been happening, in the South Eastern part of the Ukraine.
These are war crimes.

Since the crash of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17, Kyiv has embarked on a frenzied military push into southeast Ukraine to try and defeat a pro-autonomy rebellion there. It is blocking access by investigators to the MH17 crash site and the forward line of its military push consists of intense and random bombardments of towns and cities amounting to war crimes on a massive scale.

http://www.globalresearch.ca/ukraine-this-time-west-sides-with-nazis/5395916Kiev’s Dirty War
August 21st, 2014
by Stephen Lendman
Rogue terror states wage wars the same way. America does it. So does Israel.
Kiev’s illegitimate fascist government operates extrajudicially. Rule of law principles don’t apply.
Dirty war is waged on its own non-combatant men, women and children. Residential neighborhoods are bombed and shelled.
Banned chemical and other terror weapons are used. Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR) member of parliament Miroslav Rudenko said:
“According to our soldiers’ information, the Ukrainian forces are using chemical ammunition on DPR territory.”
“Once a shell bursts, a gas affecting sense organs is emitted. We have this information.”
In early June, Southeastern Ukrainian freedom fighters said Kiev forces attacked Semyonovka near Slaviansk with an unknown chemical weapon.
On August 6, freedom fighters claimed “irrefutable evidence” of a weapon used similar to white phosphorous.
It burns flesh to the bone. It keeps burning until entirely consumed or deprived of oxygen.
The Hague and Geneva Conventions categorically prohibit use of these type weapons. It doesn’t matter.
Kiev uses them against civilians. So does Israel. America uses banned chemical, biological and radiological weapons in all its wars.
These countries kill and destroy indiscriminately. They commit daily crimes of war and against humanity.
US special forces are trained killers. They’re actively involved in training and aiding Kiev’s military.
So is L-3 Communications. It’s a private military contractor. According to Rossiya Segodnia’s Center for International Journalism and Research’s Daniel Zubov:
“L-3 is packed with former high-ranking US military generals and other officers, including several L-3 board members.”
They include former Joint Chiefs chairman Henry Hugh Shelton and former Army vice Vice Chief of Staff General Richard Cody.
Kiev forces deliberately and maliciously inflict prohibited collective punishment on hundreds of thousands of Southeastern Ukrainians. It does so with full support from and complicity with Washington.
Two rogue terror states partner in crimes of war and against humanity.. They continue daily unaccountably.
Media scoundrels ignore the worst of what demands headlines. They point fingers the wrong way.
They call lawless Kiev forces liberating ones. Southeastern Ukrainian freedom fighting democrats are called terrorists.
Daily managed news misinformation substitutes for truth and full disclosure. On Monday, a convoy carrying refugees was attacked.
Each side accused the other. Most likely, Kiev forces were responsible.
What possible motive would Southeastern Ukrainian freedom fighters have to attack defenseless civilians from their own areas fleeing for safety?
Kiev forces benefit by blaming self-defense democrats for their crimes. Not according to The New York Times.
On August 18, it headlined “Rebels Killed Dozens in Attack on Refugees, Ukraine says.” What about what freedom fighters say? What about what most likely did or did not happen?
Citing Ukraine’s military, The Times said “(s)eparatist rebels on Monday attacked a caravan of cars carrying refugees trying to flee war-ravaged eastern Ukraine, killing ‘dozens’ of people in a devastating barrage of artillery fire…”
The Times quoted Ukraine military spokesman Col. Adriy Lysenko saying “terrorists had perpetrated a bloody crime.”
“Many people died, including women and children.” No specific numbers were given. Reuters reported “dozens.”
The attack occurred on a main highway near Lugansk. “A powerful artillery strike…was so strong that people were burned alive in (their) vehicles…”
Freedom fighters denied involvement. They questioned whether any attack occurred.
At the same time, DPR Deputy Prime Minister Andrei Purgin said Kiev forces “have bombed the road constantly with airplanes and Grads.”
“It seems they’ve now killed more civilians like they’ve been doing for months now. We don’t have the ability to send Grads into that territory.”
Donetsk self-defense leader Alexander Zakharchenko added:
“As far as I understand, there was no column of refugees in Lugansk region that fell under fire.”
“We…did not shoot any convoys (of refugees) with Grads and moreover we did not shoot with any Grads from Russia.”
The State Department was quick to condemn the attack that may not have occurred if area self-defense leaders are right.
At the same time, deputy spokeswoman Marie Harf stopped short of laying blame.
“We strongly condemn the shelling and rocketing of a convoy that was bearing internally displaced persons in Lugansk,” she said.
Throughout Israel’s Operation Protective Edge on Gaza, Harf and State Department’s Jen Psaki outrageously called Israel’s premeditated genocidal war self-defense.
Over 80% of casualties were civilians. Over 500 children were killed. Israel’s war without mercy continues. How many more Palestinians will die remains to be seen.
Kiev forces began attacking Southeast Ukrainian freedom fighters and civilians in early April. Conflict remains ongoing.
Dozens are killed or wounded daily. Well over 2,100 have died. Over 5,000 have been wounded.
UN spokeswoman Cecile Pouilly calls these “very conservative estimates.”
Itar Tass said around 34 people were killed and 29 others wounded in the city of Donetsk in the last 24 hours alone.
Two districts were heavily shelled. A coal mine was struck. Attack drones struck targets.
On Wednesday morning, strong blasts occurred in central Donetsk. Gunfire set a warehouse with car tires ablaze.
Street-to-street fighting in Lugansk continues. Russian, German, French and Ukrainian foreign minister talks in Berlin Sunday included pledges to keep working for conflict resolution.
On August 18, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov discussed Moscow’s humanitarian aid initiative, border control and efforts to achieve a durable ceasefire.
“People are dying every day,” he said. “Civilian infrastructure is being destroyed every day as well.” He stressed Russia’s position. Ceasefire “must be unconditional.”
“Unfortunately, our Ukrainian colleagues continue to put forward a variety of rather vague terms and conditions, including, as they put it, ensuring the ‘tightness’ of the borders.”
“(W)e have nothing against border control being maximally effective, and we are doing our best to achieve this goal.”
“A ceasefire is a two-way street. Our colleagues from Kiev are complaining that the self-defence fighters are not communicating with them.”
“It’s difficult to be in contact when you’re being bombed relentlessly, as is the case in Lugansk.”
“Our Western colleagues who have direct influence on Kiev have work to do in this department.”
“Unfortunately, the United States was not represented at the meeting in Berlin.”
Washington spurns diplomacy. It wants Kiev’s dirty war continued.
It wants freedom fighting democrats crushed. It wants fascist putschists firmly in control nationwide.
Lavrov’s meeting with his German, French and Ukrainian counterparts achieved no results. Nor will follow-up discussions.
At the same time, Lavrov continues going all-out for peaceful conflict resolution. He refuses to accept anything less.
He’s a world class diplomat. He shames his US and EU counterparts.
He deplores US-led adventurism. He pursues peace. He does so tirelessly.
He deserves Nobel Peace Prize recognition. War criminals usually get it. Obama is Exhibit A.
He bears full responsibility for Ukrainian crisis conditions. For deposing a democratically elected government. For installing a putschist neo-Nazi-infested fascist one.
For partnering in Kiev’s dirty war against its own citizens. For adding another genocidal crime to his rap sheet.
For risking the unthinkable – direct confrontation with Russia. For potentially transforming a new Cold War into a hot one.
Madness defines his agenda. Peace is a non-starter. Multiple direct and proxy wars continue. Humanity remains hugely at risk.http://www.veteranstoday.com/2014/08/21/kievs-dirty-war/

Military Budget
Ukraine’s parliament agreed to mobilize military and National Guard units and approved emergency funding on 17 March 2014 of Hr 6.7 billion (more than $600 million) for military spending — a significant amount in a defense budget that doesn’t exceed $2 billion a year. The law on partial mobilization of the military was approved with 275 out of 450 votes. The law amending the current budget was approved with the support of 243 out of 450 lawmakers. Andriy Parubiy, Batkivshchyna party member and head of Ukraine’s Security and Defense Council, blamed overthrown President Viktor Yanukovych for doing “everything to destroy the Ukrainian army. We need to put all operating units on alert.” Minister of Finance Oleksandr Shlapak said that “we have a very complicated economic situation in Ukraine” and will need to spend Hr 6.7 billion in the next three months to buy weapons, repair military equipment and conduct training camps. Currently, Shlapak said that there were no reserve funds available, forcing parliament to immediately reallocate part of the approved 2014 budget.
Ukraine’s president announced plans to boost his country’s defense spending by an estimated 50 percent, pledging to spend an extra 40 billion hryvnia ($3 billion) by 2017. Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko vowed to increase military spending by $3 billion over the next few years because of the ongoing pro-Russian separatist threat in the east of Ukraine. Poroshenko made the comment Sunday in Kyiv during a speech 24 August 2014, marking Independence Day, 23 years after the breakup of the Soviet Union.
After independence, the kind of serious reorganization and downsizing of the Ukrainian military necessary to rationalize the forces was not accomplished, leaving a force larger than the country could afford. Every Ukrainian government since independence has budgeted less than was necessary to adequately fund the existing military – and then provided actual funding even less than the paltry amount budgeted.
This led to a military without enough money to adequately train its conscript troops There was neither enough money to properly maintain the navy’s ships, except for a couple of show pieces, nor money for those ships able to put to sea for sufficient time to adequately train crews. However, one of the most damaging deficits was in the air force, for which there was neither sufficient money to properly maintain aging Soviet-era aircraft nor enough money for the air force’s pilots to have more than a very small number of the flying hours necessary to maintain top efficiency.
In recent years the Ukrainian parliament has funded the military at 10 percent of what it needs to modernize. The Ukrainian military has said it needed 131 billion hryvnyas ($11.3 billion) to replace old weapons and machinery. But in 2013 the parliament allocated just 15.6 billion hryvnyas ($1.3 billion) for defense. By contrast, Poland’s defense budget is about $10 billion, Russia’s is some $70 billion, and the United States’ is around $640 billion.
Ukraine’s 2012 military spending increased by around 30 percent, to about $2 billion or 1.1 percent of GDP, the Ukrainian Defense Ministry’s financial department said on 25 January 2012. Funding for the Defense Ministry in 2012 will be 17 bln UAH ($2.13 bln): 15 bln UAH ($1.9 bln) from the general budget fund 2 bln UAH ($250 mln) from the special fund which must be self-funded through MoD business activities. About 5 bln UAH ($625 mln) will be allocated for development and purchase of new and upgraded weapons.
For comparison, the 2011 defense budget is 13.6 bln UAH ($1.7 bln) of which 11.4 bln UAH ($1.43 bln) comes from general fund and 2.2 bln UAH ($275 mln) from the special fund. The 2012 draft budget thus represented a 31% increase in the general fund and a 25% increase in the overall defense budget. Growth in spending on procurement and modernization has increased at an even greater rate . This follows a 20% increase in 2011 over 2010, underlining the government’s commitment to increasing defense budgets and modernization.
The ministry expected to spend about $120 million of the 2012 budget for purchases and modernization of military equipment, as well as scientific and military design projects, including the production of L-39 Albatros jet trainers and MiG-29 fighter jets. Ukraine’s existing fleet of MiG-29, L-39 and Su-25 close air support aircrafts will also be modernized.
The Defense Ministry announced that it would spend 2.39 bln UAH ($299 mln) on equipment for the Armed Forces by the end of 2012. Of this, 666.8 mln UAH ($83.35 mln) will be allocated for procurement of new military equipment. Items going into service by the end of 2012 (for delivery in 2013) include modernized Su-27 fighter aircrafts, modernized Mi-24 attack helicopters, BTR-4E APCs, the “Malachite” radar station, a 152-millimeter precise guided projectile, and 30-millimeter ZTM-1 automatic canons (which are scheduled for installations on combat modules manufactured in Ukraine). By the end of 2012, the State will allocate an additional 800 mln UAH ($100 mln) for national programs to develop an An-70 transport aircrafts, the corvette-class frigate, the Sapsan multi-functional missile complex, and Armed Forces’ command and control system. In addition, 900 mln UAH ($112.5 mln) will be allocated for equipment repairs.
Head of Ukrainian Defense Ministry’s Financial Department Lt. Gen. Yvan Marko said 21 jets, five helicopters and 612 vehicles will be repaired and modernized in 2012. Ukraine’s 2012 state defense order would stand at $184 million, four times more than last year, including $54 million to build a corvette-class ship and $13 million for the construction of the Sapsan multifunctional missile system. Ukraine’s military budget amounted to 0.8 percent of GDP on average over the past few years, substantially less than the average 1.3 percent of other Eastern European states.
The Ukrainian Armed Forces are to be downsized almost 50 percent by 2017, General Staff chief Igor Nikolaenko said on 07 September 2012. Military personnel will be reduced from the current 193,000 to 100,000, Ukrainskiye Novosti news agency quoted him as saying. There will be no more personnel cuts after 2017. The country also plans to completely phase out the draft by that time.
Ukraine’s total defense spending during 2001 was Hr 2.7 billion ($550 million), while the actual needs of the country’s army are estimated at “at least” Hr 10 billion ($2 billion). Insufficient funding of defense needs requires finding extra sources of funding. It can be solved by economic activities within the Armed Forces. The State leadership considers it a temporary, but necessary activity for the Armed Forces under current conditions. As the result of this activity in 2000 it was planned to gain more than 900 million Hrn for defense needs.
The main goal of economic activity is to enhance funding support of forces and ensure social protection of military personnel and their families.The State Program defines its main near-term priorities as the following:
•
• Looking for additional sources of defense funding.
• Improving the current economic status of MOD enterprises and enhancing their production outputs.
• Improving the procedures of selling excess Armed Forces equipment, increasing the cash flow from leasing equipment, facilities and providing services.
The main challenge in implementing the State Programme of Development of the Armed Forces is resource limitations: imbalances in the amount of funding, stipulated in the Programme itself, according to the indices approved by the laws on the State Budget, to that actually received. Thus, the approval, by the Law of Ukraine, of expenditure for 2007 of UAH 9.13 billion rather than UAH 10.3 billion stipulated by the State Programme made it impossible to fully implement measures determined in the Programme. Total amount of funding that had not been allocated to the State Programme of Development of the Armed Forces of Ukraine in 2006-2007 is more than UAH 4 billion. If such a trend continues, the Armed Forces may fail to receive nearly UAH 10.5 billion or 14.2% of the UAH 73.4 billion stipulated by the Programme.
Being financially restrained MOD and GS focused their main efforts to maintaining the combat readiness of available weapons and equipment through their modernization and prolongation of service life. An organization and technology basis was created to modernize and prolong the service life of aircraft: An-24, An-26, An-30, MiG-29, Su-24, Su-25, Su-27, L-39, S-300; Buck M1 anti-aircraft missile systems; and, tanks and light armoured vehicles. The newly introduced system of state procurement through a Single Tender Committee prevents the spread of finances, provides for raising the level of transparency and control over the procurement process, while increasing the efficiency of budget spending.
The State Programme of the Armed Forces of Ukraine Development for 2006-2011 (The State Programme) was accomplished in 2011. The Armed Forces’ development in the framework of the State Programme was financed by the amount of UAH 55.5 billion (75.6% of the planned budget), that enabled its implementation in full.
The State Budget of Ukraine for 2011 assigned UAH 13,804.4 million for the Ministry of Defence, which accounted for 1.07% of GDP. The General Fund amounted to UAH 11,594.8 million (84% of the budget) while the Special Fund accounted for UAH 2,209.6 million (16% of the budget). Only UAH 12,709.1 million (0.98% of GDP) was actually allocated which accounted for 92% of the annual budget. The General Fund allocation totalled UAH 11,594.8 million (100% of budget) and the Special Fund UAH 1,114.3 million (50.4% of budget).
The average annual percentage of financing the needs of the defence sector during the period 2006-2011 was 1.0% of GDP; the majority of the funds (about 80%) were used for the maintenance of troops (forces). Under these circumstances the budget of the Ministry of Defence was “the eating away budget” since it had no resources available for the combat readiness renewal or the development of the Armed Forces.
However, the experience of the defence policy implementation gained during the period 2006-2011 was taken into account whilst developing the State Comprehensive Programme of the Armed Forces of Ukraine reform and development for 2012-2017. The programme envisages the implementation of decisive and fundamental reforms that will be supported by the actual resources provision and this will lead to creation of a qualitatively new Armed Forces.http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/ukraine/budget.htm

Considering the Referendum in South Eastern Ukraine and the fact that Ukraine has billion in

Debts to pay, they chose to buy weapons to kill innocent people with.

So a few weapons manufactures made money.

So who profits from all the deaths?

Oligarchs in the Ukraine perhaps.

Victoria Nuland, passing out her cookies and $5 billion US dollars started this.

Snipers killing innocent people in the beginning. Yes it was the Nazi group doing that, not the government that was ousted

or police who did that one. We must remember all the details of this per-planned, orchestrated mess.

The US decided, who would be in charge of it all. Lest we forget that phone call. F@$# the EU by Victoria Nuland.

Yes we all remember that. Yes.

The EU?NATO countries supported the coup and the ongoing slaughter of innocent people.

Then of course their was the Passenger plane, sent into the war zone on purpose, just so it could be blown out of the sky.

Of course Kiev was not willing to let investigators finish their investigation into the downed plane.

Then again they didn’t want to investigate the snipers who killed people either.

If anyone has anything to add, do leave a comment with links included.

All input is appreciated especially, when it comes to war crimes and crimes against humanity.

My plea to the people of Israel: Liberate yourselves by liberating Palestine
Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu, in an exclusive article for Haaretz, calls for a global boycott of Israel and urges Israelis and Palestinians to look beyond their leaders for a sustainable solution to the crisis in the Holy Land.
By Desmond Tutu
Published 21:56 14.08.14
The past weeks have witnessed unprecedented action by members of civil society across the world against the injustice of Israel’s disproportionately brutal response to the firing of missiles from Palestine.
If you add together all the people who gathered over the past weekend to demand justice in Israel and Palestine – in Cape Town, Washington, D.C., New York, New Delhi, London, Dublin and Sydney, and all the other cities – this was arguably the largest active outcry by citizens around a single cause ever in the history of the world.
A quarter of a century ago, I participated in some well-attended demonstrations against apartheid. I never imagined we’d see demonstrations of that size again, but last Saturday’s turnout in Cape Town was as big if not bigger. Participants included young and old, Muslims, Christians, Jews, Hindus, Buddhists, agnostics, atheists, blacks, whites, reds and greens … as one would expect from a vibrant, tolerant, multicultural nation.
I asked the crowd to chant with me: “We are opposed to the injustice of the illegal occupation of Palestine. We are opposed to the indiscriminate killing in Gaza. We are opposed to the indignity meted out to Palestinians at checkpoints and roadblocks. We are opposed to violence perpetrated by all parties. But we are not opposed to Jews.”
Earlier in the week, I called for the suspension of Israel from the International Union of Architects, which was meeting in South Africa.
I appealed to Israeli sisters and brothers present at the conference to actively disassociate themselves and their profession from the design and construction of infrastructure related to perpetuating injustice, including the separation barrier, the security terminals and checkpoints, and the settlements built on occupied Palestinian land.
“I implore you to take this message home: Please turn the tide against violence and hatred by joining the nonviolent movement for justice for all people of the region,” I said.
Over the past few weeks, more than 1.6 million people across the world have signed onto this movement by joining an Avaaz campaign calling on corporations profiting from the Israeli occupation and/or implicated in the abuse and repression of Palestinians to pull out. The campaign specifically targets Dutch pension fund ABP; Barclays Bank; security systems supplier G4S; French transport company Veolia; computer company Hewlett-Packard; and bulldozer supplier Caterpillar.
Last month, 17 EU governments urged their citizens to avoid doing business in or investing in illegal Israeli settlements.
We have also recently witnessed the withdrawal by Dutch pension fund PGGM of tens of millions of euros from Israeli banks; the divestment from G4S by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation; and the U.S. Presbyterian Church divested an estimated $21 million from HP, Motorola Solutions and Caterpillar.
It is a movement that is gathering pace.
Violence begets violence and hatred, that only begets more violence and hatred.
We South Africans know about violence and hatred. We understand the pain of being the polecat of the world; when it seems nobody understands or is even willing to listen to our perspective. It is where we come from.
We also know the benefits that dialogue between our leaders eventually brought us; when organizations labeled “terrorist” were unbanned and their leaders, including Nelson Mandela, were released from imprisonment, banishment and exile.
We know that when our leaders began to speak to each other, the rationale for the violence that had wracked our society dissipated and disappeared. Acts of terrorism perpetrated after the talks began – such as attacks on a church and a pub – were almost universally condemned, and the party held responsible snubbed at the ballot box.
The exhilaration that followed our voting together for the first time was not the preserve of black South Africans alone. The real triumph of our peaceful settlement was that all felt included. And later, when we unveiled a constitution so tolerant, compassionate and inclusive that it would make God proud, we all felt liberated.
Of course, it helped that we had a cadre of extraordinary leaders.
But what ultimately forced these leaders together around the negotiating table was the cocktail of persuasive, nonviolent tools that had been developed to isolate South Africa, economically, academically, culturally and psychologically.
At a certain point – the tipping point – the then-government realized that the cost of attempting to preserve apartheid outweighed the benefits.
The withdrawal of trade with South Africa by multinational corporations with a conscience in the 1980s was ultimately one of the key levers that brought the apartheid state – bloodlessly – to its knees. Those corporations understood that by contributing to South Africa’s economy, they were contributing to the retention of an unjust status quo.
Those who continue to do business with Israel, who contribute to a sense of “normalcy” in Israeli society, are doing the people of Israel and Palestine a disservice. They are contributing to the perpetuation of a profoundly unjust status quo.
Those who contribute to Israel’s temporary isolation are saying that Israelis and Palestinians are equally entitled to dignity and peace.
Ultimately, events in Gaza over the past month or so are going to test who believes in the worth of human beings.
It is becoming more and more clear that politicians and diplomats are failing to come up with answers, and that responsibility for brokering a sustainable solution to the crisis in the Holy Land rests with civil society and the people of Israel and Palestine themselves.
Besides the recent devastation of Gaza, decent human beings everywhere – including many in Israel – are profoundly disturbed by the daily violations of human dignity and freedom of movement Palestinians are subjected to at checkpoints and roadblocks. And Israel’s policies of illegal occupation and the construction of buffer-zone settlements on occupied land compound the difficulty of achieving an agreementsettlement in the future that is acceptable for all.
The State of Israel is behaving as if there is no tomorrow. Its people will not live the peaceful and secure lives they crave – and are entitled to – as long as their leaders perpetuate conditions that sustain the conflict.
I have condemned those in Palestine responsible for firing missiles and rockets at Israel. They are fanning the flames of hatred. I am opposed to all manifestations of violence.
But we must be very clear that the people of Palestine have every right to struggle for their dignity and freedom. It is a struggle that has the support of many around the world.
No human-made problems are intractable when humans put their heads together with the earnest desire to overcome them. No peace is impossible when people are determined to achieve it.
Peace requires the people of Israel and Palestine to recognize the human being in themselves and each other; to understand their interdependence.
Missiles, bombs and crude invective are not part of the solution. There is no military solution.
The solution is more likely to come from that nonviolent toolbox we developed in South Africa in the 1980s, to persuade the government of the necessity of altering its policies.
The reason these tools – boycott, sanctions and divestment – ultimately proved effective was because they had a critical mass of support, both inside and outside the country. The kind of support we have witnessed across the world in recent weeks, in respect of Palestine.
My plea to the people of Israel is to see beyond the moment, to see beyond the anger at feeling perpetually under siege, to see a world in which Israel and Palestine can coexist – a world in which mutual dignity and respect reign.
It requires a mind-set shift. A mind-set shift that recognizes that attempting to perpetuate the current status quo is to damn future generations to violence and insecurity. A mind-set shift that stops regarding legitimate criticism of a state’s policies as an attack on Judaism. A mind-set shift that begins at home and ripples out across communities and nations and regions – to the Diaspora scattered across the world we share. The only world we share.
People united in pursuit of a righteous cause are unstoppable. God does not interfere in the affairs of people, hoping we will grow and learn through resolving our difficulties and differences ourselves. But God is not asleep. The Jewish scriptures tell us that God is biased on the side of the weak, the dispossessed, the widow, the orphan, the alien who set slaves free on an exodus to a Promised Land. It was the prophet Amos who said we should let righteousness flow like a river.
Goodness prevails in the end. The pursuit of freedom for the people of Palestine from humiliation and persecution by the policies of Israel is a righteous cause. It is a cause that the people of Israel should support.
Nelson Mandela famously said that South Africans would not feel free until Palestinians were free.
He might have added that the liberation of Palestine will liberate Israel, too.Source

Now before you decide, what you would like to do,

read and listen to all of the following information, then go from there.

People in Gaza and elsewhere in Palestine feel disappointed at the lack of any significant international reaction to the carnage and destruction the Israeli assault has so far left behind it in the Strip. The inability, or unwillingness, to act seems to be first and foremost an acceptance of the Israeli narrative and argumentation for the crisis in Gaza. Israel has developed a very clear narrative about the present carnage in Gaza.

It is a tragedy caused by an unprovoked Hamas missile attack on the Jewish State, to which Israel had to react in self-defence. While mainstream western media, academia and politicians may have reservations about the proportionality of the force used by Israel, they accept the gist of this argument. This Israeli narrative is totally rejected in the world of cyber activism and alternative media. There it seems the condemnation of the Israeli action as a war crime is widespread and consensual.

The main difference between the two analyses from above and from below is the willingness of activists to study deeper and in a more profound way the ideological and historical context of the present Israeli action in Gaza. This tendency should be enhanced even further and this piece is just a modest attempt to contribute towards this direction.

Ad Hoc Slaughter?

An historical evaluation and contextualization of the present Israeli assault on Gaza and that of the previous three ones since 2006 expose clearly the Israeli genocidal policy there. An incremental policy of massive killing that is less a product of a callous intention as it is the inevitable outcome of Israel’s overall strategy towards Palestine in general and the areas it occupied in 1967, in particular.

This context should be insisted upon, since the Israeli propaganda machine attempts again and again to narrate its policies as out of context and turns the pretext it found for every new wave of destruction into the main justification for another spree of indiscriminate slaughter in the killing fields of Palestine.

The Israeli strategy of branding its brutal policies as an ad hoc response to this or that Palestinian action is as old as the Zionist presence in Palestine itself. It was used repeatedly as a justification for implementing the Zionist vision of a future Palestine that has in it very few, if any, native Palestinians. The means for achieving this goal changed with the years, but the formula has remained the same: whatever the Zionist vision of a Jewish State might be, it can only materialize without any significant number of Palestinians in it. And nowadays the vision is of an Israel stretching over almost the whole of historic Palestine where millions of Palestinians still live.

This vision ran into trouble once territorial greed led Israel to try and keep the West Bank and the Gaza Strip within its rule and control ever since June 1967. Israel searched for a way to keep the territories it occupied that year without incorporating their population into its rights-bearing citizenry. All the while it participated in a ‘peace process’ charade to cover up or buy time for its unilateral colonization policies on the ground.

With the decades, Israel differentiated between areas it wished to control directly and those it would manage indirectly, with the aim in the long run of downsizing the Palestinian population to a minimum with, among other means, ethnic cleansing and economic and geographic strangulation. Thus the West Bank was in effect divided into a ‘Jewish’ and a ‘Palestinian’ zones – a reality most Israelis can live with provided the Palestinian Bantustans are content with their incarceration within these mega prisons. The geopolitical location of the West Bank creates the impression in Israel, at least, that it is possible to achieve this without anticipating a third uprising or too much international condemnation.

The Gaza Strip, due to its unique geopolitical location, did not lend itself that easily to such a strategy. Ever since 1994, and even more so when Ariel Sharon came to power as prime minister in the early 2000s, the strategy there was to ghettoize Gaza and somehow hope that the people there — 1.8 million as of today — would be dropped into eternal oblivion.

But the Ghetto proved to be rebellious and unwilling to live under conditions of strangulation, isolation, starvation and economic collapse. There was no way it would be annexed to Egypt, neither in 1948 nor in 2014. In 1948, Israel pushed into the Gaza area (before it became a strip) hundreds of thousands of refugees it expelled from the northern Naqab and southern coast who, so they hoped, would move even farther away from Palestine.

For a while after 1967, it wanted to keep as a township which provided unskilled labour but without any human and civil rights. When the occupied people resisted the continued oppression in two intifadas, the West Bank was bisected into small Bantustans encircled by Jewish colonies, but it did not work in the too small and too dense Gaza Strip. The Israelis were unable to ‘West Bank’ the Strip, so to speak. So they cordoned it as a Ghetto and when it resisted the army was allowed to use its most formidable and lethal weapons to crash it. The inevitable result of an accumulative reaction of this kind was genocidal.

Incremental Genocide

The killing of three Israeli teenagers, two of them minors, abducted in the occupied West Bank in June, which was mainly a reprisal for killings of Palestinian children in May, provided the pretext first and foremost for destroying the delicate unity Hamas and Fatah have formed in that month. A unity that followed a decision by the Palestinian Authority to forsake the ‘peace process’ and appeal to international organizations to judge Israel according to a human and civil rights’ yardstick. Both developments were viewed as alarming in Israel.

The pretext determined the timing – but the viciousness of the assault was the outcome of Israel’s inability to formulate a clear policy towards the Strip it created in 1948. The only clear feature of that policy is the deep conviction that wiping out the Hamas from the Gaza Strip would domicile the Ghetto there.

Since 1994, even before the rise of Hamas to power in the Gaza Strip, the very particular geopolitical location of the Strip made it clear that any collective punitive action, such as the one inflicted now, could only be an operation of massive killings and destruction. In other words: an incremental genocide.

This recognition never inhibited the generals who give the orders to bomb the people from the air, the sea and the ground. Downsizing the number of Palestinians all over historic Palestine is still the Zionist vision; an ideal that requires the dehumanisation of the Palestinians. In Gaza, this attitude and vision takes its most inhuman form.

The particular timing of this wave is determined, as in the past, by additional considerations. The domestic social unrest of 2011 is still simmering and for a while there was a public demand to cut military expenditures and move money from the inflated ‘defence’ budget to social services. The army branded this possibility as suicidal. There is nothing like a military operation to stifle any voices calling on the government to cut its military expenses.

Typical hallmarks of the previous stages in this incremental genocide reappear in this wave as well. As in the first operation against Gaza, ‘First Rains’ in 2006, and those which followed in 2009, ‘Cast Lead’, and 2012, ‘Pillar of Smoke’, one can witness again consensual Israeli Jewish support for the massacre of civilians in the Gaza Strip, without one significant voice of dissent. The Academia, as always, becomes part of the machinery. Various universities offered the state its student bodies to help and battle for the Israeli narrative in the cyberspace and alternative media.

The Israeli media, as well, toed loyally the government’s line, showing no pictures of the human catastrophe Israel has wreaked and informing its public that this time, ‘the world understands us and is behind us’. That statement is valid to a point as the political elites in the West continue to provide the old immunity to the Jewish state. The recent appeal by Western governments to the prosecutor in the international court of Justice in The Hague not to look into Israel’s crimes in Gaza is a case in point. Wide sections of the Western media followed suit and justified by and large Israel’s actions.

This distorted coverage is also fed by a sense among Western journalist that what happens in Gaza pales in comparison to the atrocities in Iraq and Syria. Comparisons like this are usually provided without a wider historical perspective. A longer view on the history of the Palestinians would be a much more appropriate way to evaluate their suffering vis-à-vis the carnage elsewhere.

Conclusion: Confronting Double-Standards

But not only historical view is needed for a better understanding of the massacre in Gaza. A dialectical approach that identifies the connection between Israel’s immunity and the horrific developments elsewhere is required as well. The dehumanization in Iraq and Syria is widespread and terrifying, as it is in Gaza. But there is one crucial difference between these cases and the Israeli brutality: the former are condemned as barbarous and inhuman worldwide, while those committed by Israel are still publicly licensed and approved by the president of the United States, the leaders of the EU and Israel’s other friends in the world.

The only chance for a successful struggle against Zionism in Palestine is the one based on a human and civil rights agenda that does not differentiate between one violation and the other and yet identifies clearly the victim and the victimizers. Those who commit atrocities in the Arab world against oppressed minorities and helpless communities, as well as the Israelis who commit these crimes against the Palestinian people, should all be judged by the same moral and ethical standards. They are all war criminals, though in the case of Palestine they have been at work longer than anyone else. It does not really matter what the religious identity is of the people who commit the atrocities or in the name of which religion they purport to speak. Whether they call themselves jihadists, Judaists or Zionists, they should be treated in the same way.

A world that would stop employing double standards in its dealings with Israel is a world that could be far more effective in its response to war crimes elsewhere in the world. Cessation of the incremental genocide in Gaza and the restitution of the basic human and civil rights of Palestinians wherever they are, including the right of return, is the only way to open a new vista for a productive international intervention in the Middle East as a whole.

Ilan Pappé is an Israeli historian at the University of Exeter, UK.His books include The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine (2007) and The Idea of Israel (2014). Source

Dec 16, 2013
Abby Martin speaks with Phyllis Bennis with the Institute for Policy Studies, about the flooding of Gaza, and the effects of the ongoing blockade that has come to characterize the Israeli occupation of Gaza and the West Bank.
Dec 2, 2012
Miko Peled was born in Jersusalem into a famous and influential Israeli Zionist family. His father was a famous General in the Israeli Army, of which Miko also served his time. When Miko’s niece was killed by Palestinian suicide bombers, you may have expected the family to put Palestinians at fault, but surprisingly they blamed the state of Israel, and their violent torturing and persecution for driving people to such sadness that they would take their own lives.

Through his father’s deep knowledge of the Israeli war of terror, together with his own research, Miko Peled ruins the myths surrounding the Israel and Palestine situation, and delivers a truth so damning that many Jews and Israel supporters will not be able to bear it. He reveals facts such as the original expelled Jews are not the ones returning, and they are not their descendants either, covers the double standards regarding the right of return, which doesn’t apply to Palestinians, and dispels the myth that there has been a conflict for ages by producing proof that it was peaceful up until 1947 when Israel launched their illegal attacks.

Miko is just one of the many modern day Jews against Zionism and the state of Israel, and with the information he delivers in this astounding talk, it is not difficult to see why more and more Jews are rejecting Zionism and calling for the dismantling of Israel. It is a true eye-opener for anyone who has for too long been blinded by the fake misinformation given by the mainstream media, and the truths come straight from the heartland where he has spent many years documenting the real story.

Nothing has changed for the Palestinians. life just gets worse for them.

Each day is a more horrific, then the day before.

This is what Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu is talking about.

This campaign is gathering real pace. Russell Brand has recorded this video backing our campaign, and the companies we’re targeting are starting to reach out to the Avaaz team and ask for meetings. Avaazers in the UK are campaigning to end arms sales to Israel as the government there initiates a review. And shockingly, even the US government cancelled a shipment of hellfire missiles to Israel!

To remain silent makes one as guilty, as those perpetrators, who kill, or support the killing of innocent people.

Understanding Ukraine in 15 Minutes

By Mike Whitney

Structural Changes in the Global Economy are often preceded by Great Crises and War

August 23, 2014 The world today is going through an overlap of a whole series of cyclical crises. The most serious of them is a technological crisis which is associated with changes in the wavelengths of economic development. We’re living in a period when the economy is changing its structure. The economic structure that has been driving economic growth for the last 30 years has exhausted itself. We need to make a transition to a new system of technologies. This kind of transition, unfortunately, has always come about through war. That’s how it was in the ’30s when the Great Depression gave way to an arms race and then the Second War World War. That’s how it was during the Cold War when an arms race in space gave rise to complex information and communication technologies which became the basis of a technological structure that has been driving the world’s economy for the last 30 years. Today we are faced with a similar crisis. The world is shifting to a new technological system.

Putin pushes Free Trade Zone to ease transition to New Global Economy

The new system is humanitarian in nature and thus could avoid a war because the main carriers of growth on this wavelength are humanitarian technologies. These include health care and pharmaceutical industries which are based in biotechnology. They also include communication technologies based on nanotechnology which is making a breakthrough today. And they involve cognitive technologies that define a new sum of human knowledge. If, as President Putin has been consistently putting forward, we were able to agree to a mutual program for development, a general development zone with a preferential trade regime from Lisbon to Vladivostok, if we were to agree with Brussels to create a common economic space, a common area of development, we could find a sufficient number of breakthrough projects, from health to repelling space threats, to fulfill our scientific and technical potential and creating a steady demand from the state. which would give a boost to the new technological system.

3 Washington sees War in Europe as best way to Preserve its Hegemony

However, America has taken its usual path. To maintain their world dominance they are provoking another war in Europe. A war is always good for America. They even call the Second World War which killed 50 million people in Europe and Russia, a good war. It was good for America because the US emerged from this war as the world’s leading power. The Cold War which ended with the collapse of the Soviet Union was also good for them. Now the US again wants to maintain its leadership at the expense of Europe. US leadership is being threatened by a rapidly rising China. The world today is shifting to yet another cycle, this time political. This cycle lasts centuries and is associated with the global institutions of regulatory economics

We are now moving from the American cycle of capital accumulation to an Asian cycle. This is another crisis that is challenging US hegemony. To maintain their leading position in the face of competition with a rising China and other Asian countries Americans are starting a war in Europe. They want to weaken Europe, break up Russia, and subjugate the entire Eurasian continent. That is, instead of a development zone from Lisbon to Vladivostok, which is proposed by President Putin, the US wants to start a chaotic war on this territory, embroil all Europe in a war, devalue to European capital, write off its public debt, under the burden of which the US is already falling apart, write off what they owe to Europe and Russia, subjugate our economic space and establish control over resources of the giant Eurasian continent. They believe that this is the only way they can maintain their hegemony and beat China.

Unfortunately the American geopolitics that we see playing out is exactly like the 19th century. They think in terms of the geopolitical struggles of the British Empire: divide and conquer. Pit nations against others, embroil them in conflict, and start a world war. Americans, unfortunately, continue this old British policy to solve their problems. Russia has been chosen as a victim of this policy while the Ukrainian people are the weapon of choice, and cannon fodder in a new world war.

First the Americans decided to target Ukraine to separate it from Russia. This tactic came from Bismarck. This anti-Russian tradition aimed to embroil Russia in conflict in order to take over the whole Eurasian space. The strategy was first put forth by Bismark, then picked up by the British,, and then finally by the leading american political scientist Zbigniew Brzezinski, who said on many occasions that Russia cannot be a superpower without Ukraine and that embroiling Russia with Ukraine will benefit America and the West.

For the past 20 years Americans have been grooming Ukraine Nazism aimed at Russia. As you know they hosted remnants of Bandera the Second World War. Tens of thousands of Ukrainian Nazis were brought to America and have been carefully cultivated and nurtured during the whole post war period. This wave of immigrants descended on Ukraine after the collapse of the Soviet Union. The idea of an eastern partnership was used as bait. It was first expressed by the Poles, and then picked up by the Americans. The essence of the eastern partnership, of which Georgia became the first victim. Now Ukraine has become one and soon Moldova will be one, to sever ties with Russia. As you know we are building the Customs Union, and a common economic space with Belarus and Kazakhstan which will soon be joined by Kyrgyzstan and Armenia. Ukraine has been our long term partner. Ukraine is still in the ratification stage of the agreement with Russia which no one in Ukraine has cancelled yet. Ukraine is important to us as part of our economic space and for our centuries long ties and cooperation. Our scientific and industrial complex was created as a whole, therefore, Ukraine’s participation in European integration is quite natural and vital. The eastern partnership was created to prevent Ukraine’s participation in the Eurasian integration project. The meaning of the eastern partnership is to create an association with the European union. What is the association that was signed by Poroshenko with the European leaders? It is the transformation of Ukraine into a colony. By signing the agreement with the association, Ukraine loses its sovereignty. It transfers control of its trade, customs, technical and financial regulation, and public procurement to Brussels.

4 The Ukrainian Nazi junta is an instrument of U.S. policy

Ukraine ceases to be a sovereign state in its economy and politics. It is clearly stated in the agreement that Ukraine is a junior partner in the European union. Ukraine must follow a common defense and foreign policy of the EU. Ukraine is obliged to participate in the resolution of regional conflicts under the leadership of the EU. Thus Poroshenko is making Ukraine a colony of the EU and pulling Ukraine into war with Russia as cannon fodder with the intention of igniting a war in Europe. The purpose of the association agreement is to allow the European countries to govern Ukraine in the settlement of regional conflicts. What is happening in Donbass is a regional armed conflict. The goal of American politics is to create as many victims as possible. The Ukrainian Nazi junta is an instrument of this policy. They are carrying out mindless atrocities and crimes bombing cities killing civilians, women and children, and forcing them to leave their homes, only to provoke Russia and then draw the whole of Europe into a war. This is Poroshenk’s mission. This is why Poroshenko is rejecting any peace negotiations and blocking all peace treaties. He interprets any statement by Washington about de-escalation of the conflict as an order to escalate it. All peace talks which have taken place on the international level have brought a new round of violence.

We must understand that we are dealing with a Nazi state which is dead set on a war with Russia and has declared general conscription. The entire male population between 18 and 55 has been put under arms. Those who refuse will get 15 years in jail. This Nazi criminal power makes criminals of the entire Ukrainian population.

5 Washington is plunging Europe into War for its own Interests

We have calculated the the European economy will lose about 1 trillion Euros for sanctions which are imposed on them by the Americans. This is a huge sum. The Europeans are already bearing the losses. There’s already a drop in sales to Russia. Germany is losing about 200 billion euros. Our most rabid friends from the Baltic states will suffer the worst losses. The loss to Estonia will be more than its GDP. The loss to Latvia will be about half its GDP. But that isn’t stopping them. European politicians are going along with the Americans without questioning what they are doing. They are harming themselves by provoking Nazism and war. I have already said that Russia and Ukraine are the victims of this war which is being fomented by the Americans. But Europe is also a victim because the war aims to target European welfare and to destabilize Europe. Americans expect the European capital and brain drain to America will continue. That’s why they are setting all of Europe on fire. It’s very strange that European leaders are going along with them.

6 Germany is still Occupied Territory

We should not just hope that European leaders (will develop an independent policy) we must work with European leaders from a new generation who are free from the American diktat. The fact that anti Soviet political elite had been formed during the post Cold War years in Europe. Then they very quickly became anti Russian. Despite the dramatically expanded economic ties and huge mutual economic interests between Europe and Russia, the Russophobia is based on anti Sovietism and still remains in the minds of many European politicians. It will take a new generation of pragmatic European politicians to understand their own national interests. What we see today is politicians who are acting against their national interests. This is largely due to the fact that Germany, which is the engine of European growth, is still an occupied country. American troops are still in Germany, and every German chancellor still gives an oath of allegiance to the Americans to follow in the footsteps of their policy. This generation of European politicians has failed to throw off the yoke of American occupation.

7 Nazism is on the Rise

Although the Soviet Union doesn’t exist anymore, they maniacally continue to follow Washington, in NATO expansion and capture new territories under their control. Despite the fact that they are already “allergic” to the new eastern European members of the EU. The European Union is already bursting at the seams, but this does not stop them from continuing their aggressive expansion into post Soviet territory. The new generation, I hope, will be more pragmatic. The last elections in the European parliament show that not everyone is fooled by this pro American anti Russia propaganda and by the constant stream of lies that are coming down on the European people. Traditional European parties lost in recent elections in the euro parliament. The more we speak the truth, the greater the reaction will be, because what’s happening in Ukraine is the revival of Nazism. Europe remembers the signs of the revival of fascism from the lessons of the Second World War.We need to awaken this historical memory so that they see in the Ukrainian Nazis, who are now in power in Kiev, the followers of Bandera, Shukhevych, and other Nazi collaborators. The ideology of the current Ukrainian authorities, has its roots in the ideology of Hitlers accomplices who shot Jews at Babi Yar, burned Ukrainians and Belarusians and annihilated everyone without ethnic distinction. This Nazism is rising today. Europeans must recognize their own death in this terrible confrontation.

I hope if we continue to spread the truth, we will be able to save Europe from the threat of war. Source

Two US aid workers have been getting an experimental anti-Ebola drug and their condition has dramatically improved. However, it’s not clear yet if the recovery is due to the treatment that’s never been tested on humans and appeared only earlier this year.

Nancy Writebol and Dr. Kent Brantly are currently at Atlanta’s Emory University Hospital. They asked for the treatment while still being treated in Liberia: despite the drug not being approved by the US Food and Drug Administration, the current restriction is only valid on the US territory, Reuters reported.

The pair contracted the disease while working in Liberia. An FDA spokeswoman said she could neither confirm nor deny that the drug had been used on the two aid workers after their arrival in the US.

Writebol, 59, has been in isolation in Liberia since her diagnosis was confirmed last month. After taking the drug, she is able to walk with assistance and has regained her appetite, according to Bruce Johnson, president of the aid group Writebol is working for, SIM USA.

Johnson, however, was in no hurry to attribute her recovery to the pharmaceutical treatment.

“Ebola is a tricky virus and one day you can be up and the next day down. One day is not indicative of the outcome. But we’re grateful this medicine was available,” he stated.

Brantly, 33, who is an employee of the international group Samaritan’s Purse, is also recovering. Apart from the drug, he got a blood transfusion from a 14-year-old Ebola survivor, who had been under Brantly’s care before.

A source close to the Atlanta hospital, where Brantly is being treated, told CNN, “Within an hour of receiving the medication, Brantly’s condition was nearly reversed. His breathing improved; the rash over his trunk faded away.”

It was the group Samaritan’s Purse who asked for the experimental drug, the US National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases stated on Monday. The organization reached the officials of the US Center for Disease Control and Prevention in Liberia, and was sent to a NIH specialist in Liberia who knew about the drug.

The scientist sent them to the companies producing the treatment, but had no “official role in procuring, transporting, approving, or administering the experimental products,” the statement added.

The drug used to treat the two is called ZMapp and boosts the immune system to battle against Ebola. The treatment consists of antibodies from lab animals exposed to the virus.

Initially, the drug was reported as the possible treatment in January, according to the production company, Mapp Biopharmaceutical Inc. of San Diego, which has been developing the drug.

They are working with LeafBio of San Diego, Defyrus Inc. of Toronto, the US government, and the Public Health Agency of Canada, the statement also read.

Among other cases of the deadly virus that were registered is a doctor who had been among the medics treating Patrick Sawyer, the Liberian-American man who died on July 25, days after arriving in Nigeria. Results of tests for the disease are set to be announced for three other people who also treated Sawyer and begin to demonstrate symptoms.

In New York City on Monday, Mount Sinai Hospital officials said they were testing a man for Ebola who recently returned from West Africa with a high fever and gastrointestinal distress.

On Monday, the WHO put the death toll at 887 in Guinea, Sierra Leone, Liberia and Nigeria, with more 1,600 infected.

Last week, the organization started a $100 million plan to deal with the deadly virus. On Monday, during the US-Africa Leaders’ Summit, international development banks pledged to provide $260 million in emergency loans for Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea.

Hundreds of troops were deployed in Sierra Leone and Liberia on Monday to quarantine communities affected by the deadly Ebola virus due to panic in local population, with threats aimed at health workers, Reuters reported. Source

Add that to this and one has to wonder

A must watch video

Many Nazi Scientist were imported by the US through Operation Paper Clip.

It is just miraculous that all of a sudden, there may be a vaccine to cure Ebola.

Well I am guessing, if you think you have a cure you need victims to test it on.

Who in their right mind, would bring an Ebola victim into their country??

June 11, 2014 “ICH” – “RYOT” – On September 7th 2013, an American drone in Afghanistan struck a car carrying 15 passengers. Everyone was killed in the attack except for one — a four-year-old girl named Aisha.

The girl was traveling with her parents, a sibling, and other relatives to their home in Gamber, a village in the Kunar province of Aghanistan.

Referred to by the locals as “American birds,” U.S. drone strikes are a common fixture in Kunar, where the Taliban reportedly has a strong presence.

The wreckage was discovered by Aisha’s uncle, Meya Kan, and other villagers on the road after they received a phone call from a neighboring village.

Kan saw body parts strewn all around the wreckage, and assumed everyone was dead — until he he heard a voice calling out for water.

It was Aisha.

Upon being pulled from the ruined vehicle, the four-year-old girl was unrecognizable. She’d lost both eyes and her nose.

The Investigation

Journalist Terese Cristiansson came across Aisha’s story while Swedish newspaper Expressen was interviewing Afghan hospital personnel about children who were injured after being forced to plant roadside bombs.

The doctor she met with, Humayoon Zaheer, couldn’t refer her to any roadside bomb injuries within the hospital. Instead, he related one particularly gruesome tale — the story of Aisha.

“We had another case here,” Zaheer told Expressen. “She came in a couple of weeks ago, in September. A little girl who had lost her face in a drone strike. It was a very unusual case. I’ll never forget it.”

Expressen reports that Aisha was brought into the hospital with her nose, both eyes, and one hand missing.

The girl was shuffled to two different hospitals in Afghanistan before being transferred to a medical facility in the capital of Kabul, the only place in the country capable of treating her severe injuries.

A few days after being in Kabul, Aisha was visited by Afghan President Hamid Karzai, who was at the hospital for a goodwill mission. In an interview with the Washington Post five months after the attack, Karzai recalled that seeing Aisha at the hospital was his “worst day in office.”
“The worst of it was when I went to visit a little girl in the French hospital who had no face, who was 4 1/2 years old, who had no face, completely blown off from the chin up to the eyes. She was blinded — her eyes were there but were blinded. Her arm was also not there. And she had lost the whole family, the entire family, 14 of them, in the bombing in Kunar. And that day . . . [note: there is a 39-second pause as Karzai struggles with his emotions] . . . that day, I wished she were dead and not alive, so she could be buried with her parents and brothers and sisters.”

Following the president’s visit, Aisha was moved across the globe to a hospital in the United States — without the consent of her remaining family. The girl’s two uncles were not allowed to accompany her.

It was at this point — five weeks after the initial strike — that Cristiansson sought to find Aisha. The girl’s uncles granted the journalist power of attorney, which made her the family’s official representative.

Through her research, she discovered that Aisha had been flown to the Walter Reed Military Hospital in Washington. From there, Aisha was put in the care of Solace for Children, a relief organization that treats Afghan children with war injuries, then finds them foster families until they can be flown back to their homes.

As the representative of Aisha’s family, Cristiansson reached out to Solace, but the organization said they’d been told that the girl didn’t have any relatives. After the journalist confirmed to the organization that Aisha did in fact have living family in Afghanistan, Solace declined to participate in any further questioning.

For weeks, Cristiansson was blackballed by the organization and heard nothing about Aisha’s condition. To both the journalist and the girl’s family, it seemed like a cover-up. Aisha’s two uncles believed that the U.S. military was withholding their niece to limit negative coverage of drone strikes.

“They probably don’t want her to become a poster girl for drone repercussions,” they told Expressen.

During this time, the International Security Assistance Force told Cristiansson that the September strike was performed because there were eight Taliban affiliates in the vehicle, and that they regret the civilian casualties.

The family of Aisha, however, said otherwise.

“How could they [commission an air strike?] They are not Taliban and there were several women and children in the car,” said Hasrat Gul, one of Aisha’s uncles.

It was not until March of this year that the family was finally updated on Aisha’s condition. When Cristiansson visted them, they told her that Aisha had been placed with a Muslim foster family in the United States. They added that her wounds had healed, but she’s still without her hand, eyes and nose.

In the end, the two uncles stressed that they just want Aisha to come home, rather than being stuck “in a country that killed her mother, father and little brother.”

“She belongs at home with us,” Meya Jan said.

The Toll of The Drone Program

2014 marks the fifth year of the U.S. drone program under President Obama, and it’s estimated that over this period at least 2,400 people have been killed. The Bureau of Investigative Journalism reports that between 416 and 951 civilians, including 168 to 200 children, were among those who’ve died in Pakistan alone.

Additionally, both Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International condemn the drone program, citing civilian casualties in Yemen and Pakistan that violate laws of war.

Just this March, the United Nations criticized American drone procedure for “the lack of transparency regarding the criteria for drone strikes, including the legal justification for specific attacks, and the lack of accountability for the loss of life resulting from such attacks.”

Nevertheless, the White House has held firm on their stance when it comes to drones.

In September of 2013, the same month Aisha was so badly injured in the devastating attack, the Obama administration denied claims from the aforementioned human rights organizations that laws were being broken.

Obama’s Chief Spokesman Jay Carney said current counterterrorism methods are “lawful” and “effective,” and that other methods would only increase civilian casualties.

In an interview with The New Yorker, President Obama asserted that the use of drones is only necessary when terrorists can’t be captured, and stated that his goal isn’t to “go around blowing things up.” He mentioned that he “wrestles” with the idea of civilians being caught in the crossfire.

“What I’ve tried to do is to tighten the process so much and limit the risks of civilian casualties so much that we have the least fallout from those actions,” Obama told the New Yorker. “But it’s not perfect.”

But accepting those types of imperfections is what led to Aisha’s horrific injuries. Isn’t it time we open our eyes and start to make a change?

Tired of hearing about drones killing innocent civilians? You can tell President Obama’s administration how you feel by signing Code Pink’s petition asking the US to take away the CIA’s lethal drone program. Click the action box to sign the petition and share this story to Become the News!CLICK HERE TO TAKE ACTION

Millions of dollars have gone to farmers years after their death as part of various farm safety net programs under the US Department of Agriculture, according to a recent government audit.

Federal auditors who poured through the USDA’s crop insurance, disaster assistance and conservation programs have found that $36.6 million were disbursed to deceased recipients, according to the nonpartisan Government Accountability Office (GAO).

The GAO report points to the biggest offender as the USDA’s Risk Management Agency, which disburses crop insurance, as having issued $22 million in subsidies one or two years after a recipient’s death.

The report has been released ahead of meetings in the House and Senate to hammer out a farm bill that may expand subsidies like crop insurance, and casts doubts on the Agriculture Department’s ability to weed out waste, fraud and abuse.

The GAO itself states that findings “may call into question whether these farm safety net programs are benefiting the agricultural sector as intended.”

Though the funds improperly doled out to the deceased farmers represent a fraction of the $20 billion in annual federal subsidies for farm incomes, as the Los Angeles Times reports, the report also comes at a critical juncture for Congress as both parties spar over the total cost of a pending $1 trillion farm bill. And if segments such as crop insurance do increase as expected, then the USDA’s inability to detect waste or fraud may only increase accordingly.

For its part, the department of agriculture is not disputing the GAO’s findings, though it has taken exception to claims that it did not have sufficient controls in place to detect improper payments, according to the New York Times.

Environmental activists, who oppose federal subsidies that, for example, encourage an artificially inflated production of corn – with implications into the popularity of GMO crops and the widespread use of high-fructose corn syrup – point to government waste as indicating a need for reforms.

“Not only are unlimited crop insurance subsidies flowing to the largest and most successful farm businesses, they are now going to deceased policyholders,” said Scott Faber, vice president of the Environmental Working Group in a statement issued Monday.

“At a time when some lawmakers want to cut off funding for the hungriest children, we find out today the federal government has spent $22 million over four years to lavish insurance subsidies to individuals who are no longer alive,” added Faber.

The Environmental Working Group (EWG) opposes what it deems “bloated” farm subsidies that produce ultimately harmful incentives to plow up wetlands, grasslands and marginal lands, or place any emphasis on soil health. As RT recently reported, corn subsidies combined with a growing deficiency in GMO corn has resulted in greater use of pesticides.

According to a recent report published by the journal Food Policy cited by EWG US farm subsidies ultimately “have negligible impact on the prices paid by consumers for food. EWG cites other evidence that even the total elimination of US farm programs “would have a very modest effect on farm prices and production” of subsidized crops such as corn and wheat.

Though the debate over whether the currently gargantuan sum doled out by the federal government in the form of the farm bill is fair, is ongoing, this latest disclosure of funds making their way to deceased individuals only provides more ammunition to critics of government waste.

Both EWG and a slew of advocacy organizations that are concerned over everything from GMOs to pesticide use argue that crop insurance programs in particular have been transformed from their original intent, which was to compensate farmers from weather-caused crop losses, to a virtual guarantee of farm income.

GAO auditors are now suggesting that the USDA implement use of the Social Security Administration’s Death Master File to identify payments made to dead individuals. According to the GAO, agencies under the department of agriculture are currently utilizing an incomplete version of that data, and thus failing to identify deceased recipients.Source

If there is one thing the US Government does really well it is waste money. Their accounting is just horrid.

I wonder if they ever found the trillions lost as reported the day before 9/11 and If I remember correctly they lost and\other trillion or so latter, as well as all the money lost on contractors during the Iraq war?

The Iraq war may be over, but it’s legacy continues to haunt residents in cities all across the country. In an exclusive report, Lucy Kafanov travelled to the city of Najaf where locals say that a health epidemic quietly rages beneath the surface. Birth defects and cancer rates are soaring in Najaf, but few outside of the city are aware of the scale of the catastrophe. American and British forces allegedly used depleted uranium rounds and other toxic weapons during the war, which some Iraqi scientists believe is to blame for the rising cancer and birth defect rates in Najaf. While no one knows exactly what’s making these Iraqi children ill, anecdotal evidence shows that a crisis does exist. High levels of congenital heart defects, malformed limbs and other defects have been documented in the city of Fallujah, but as Lucy Kafanov reports, the crisis could be far more widespread than previously thought.

Depleted Uranium Dust – Public Health Disaster For The People Of Iraq and Afghanistan

By Doug Westerman

Global Research, May 03, 2006

In 1979, depleted uranium (DU) particles escaped from the National Lead Industries factory near Albany, N.Y.,which was manufacturing DU weapons for the U.S military. The particles traveled 26 miles and were discovered in a laboratory filter by Dr. Leonard Dietz, a nuclear physicist. This discovery led to a shut down of the factory in 1980, for releasing morethan 0.85 pounds of DU dust into the atmosphere every month, and involved a cleanup of contaminated properties costing over 100 million dollars.

Imagine a far worse scenario. Terrorists acquire a million pounds of the deadly dust and scatter it in populated areas throughout the U.S. Hundreds of children report symptoms. Many acquire cancer and leukemia, suffering an early and painful death. Huge increases in severe birth defects are reported. Oncologists are overwhelmed. Soccer fields, sand lots and parks, traditional play areas for kids, are no longer safe. People lose their most basic freedom, the ability to go outside and safely breathe. Sounds worse than 9/11? Welcome to Iraq and Afghanistan.

Dr. Jawad Al-Ali (55), director of the Oncology Center at the largest hospital in Basra, Iraq stated, at a recent ( 2003) conference in Japan:

“Two strange phenomena have come about in Basra which I have never seen before. The first is double and triple cancers in one patient. For example, leukemia and cancer of the stomach. We had one patient with 2 cancers – one in his stomach and kidney. Months later, primary cancer was developing in his other kidney–he had three different cancer types. The second is the clustering of cancer in families. We have 58 families here with more than one person affected by cancer. Dr Yasin, a general Surgeon here has two uncles, a sister and cousin affected with cancer. Dr Mazen, another specialist, has six family members suffering from cancer. My wife has nine members of her family with cancer”.

“Children in particular are susceptible to DU poisoning. They have a much higher absorption rate as their blood is being used to build and nourish their bones and they have a lot of soft tissues. Bone cancer and leukemia used to be diseases affecting them the most, however, cancer of the lymph system which can develop anywhere on the body, and has rarely been seen before the age of 12 is now also common.”,

“We were accused of spreading propaganda for Saddam before the war. When I have gone to do talks I have had people accuse me of being pro-Saddam. Sometimes I feel afraid to even talk. Regime people have been stealing my data and calling it their own, and using it for their own agendas. The Kuwaitis banned me from entering Kuwait – we were accused of being Saddam supporters.”

John Hanchette, a journalism professor at St. Bonaventure University, and one of the founding editors of USA TODAY related the following to DU researcher Leuren Moret. He stated that he had prepared news breaking stories about the effects of DU on Gulf War soldiers and Iraqi citizens, but that each time he was ready to publish, he received a phone call from the Pentagon asking him not to print the story. He has since been replaced as editor of USA TODAY.

Dr. Keith Baverstock, The World Health Organization’s chief expert on radiation and health for 11 years and author of an unpublished study has charged that his report ” on the cancer risk to civilians in Iraq from breathing uranium contaminated dust ” was also deliberately suppressed.

The information released by the U.S. Dept. of Defense is not reliable, according to some sources even within the military.

In 1997, while citing experiments, by others, in which 84 percent of dogs exposed to inhaled uranium died of cancer of the lungs, Dr. Asaf Durakovic, then Professor of Radiology and Nuclear Medicine at Georgetown University in Washington was quoted as saying,

“The [US government’s] Veterans Administration asked me to lie about the risks of incorporating depleted uranium in the human body.”

At that time Dr. Durakovic was a colonel in the U.S. Army. He has since left the military, to found the Uranium Medical Research Center, a privately funded organization with headquarters in Canada.

PFC Stuart Grainger of 23 Army Division, 34th Platoon. (Names and numbers have been changed) was diagnosed with cancer several after returning from Iraq. Seven other men in the Platoon also have malignancies.

Doug Rokke, U.S. Army contractor who headed a clean-up of depleted uranium after the first Gulf War states:,

“Depleted uranium is a crime against God and humanity.”

Rokke’s own crew, a hundred employees, was devastated by exposure to the fine dust. He stated:

“When we went to the Gulf, we were all really healthy,”

After performing clean-up operations in the desert (mistakenly without protective gear), 30 members of his staff died, and most others”including Rokke himself”developed serious health problems. Rokke now has reactive airway disease, neurological damage, cataracts, and kidney problems.

”We warned the Department of Defense in 1991 after the Gulf War. Their arrogance is beyond comprehension.

Yet the D.O.D still insists such ingestion is “not sufficient to make troops seriously ill in most cases.”

Then why did it make the clean up crew seriously or terminally ill in nearly all cases?

Marion Falk, a retired chemical physicist who built nuclear bombs for more than 20 years at Lawrence Livermore Lab, was asked if he thought that DU weapons operate in a similar manner as a dirty bomb.

“That’s exactly what they are. They fit the description of a dirty bomb in every way.”

According to Falk, more than 30 percent of the DU fired from the cannons of U.S. tanks is reduced to particles one-tenth of a micron (one millionth of a meter) in size or smaller on impact. “The larger the bang” the greater the amount of DU that is dispersed into the atmosphere, Falk said. With the larger missiles and bombs, nearly 100 percent of the DU is reduced to radioactive dust particles of the “micron size” or smaller, he said.

When asked if the main purpose for using it was for destroying things and killing people, Falk was more specific:

“I would say that it is the perfect weapon for killing lots of people.”

When a DU round or bomb strikes a hard target, most of its kinetic energy is converted to heat ” sufficient heat to ignite the DU. From 40% to 70% of the DU is converted to extremely fine dust particles of ceramic uranium oxide (primarily dioxide, though other formulations also occur). Over 60% of these particles are smaller than 5 microns in diameter, about the same size as the cigarette ash particles in cigarette smoke and therefore respirable.

Because conditions are so chaotic in Iraq, the medical infrastructure has been greatly compromised. In terms of both cancer and birth defects due to DU, only a small fraction of the cases are being reported.

Doctors in southern Iraq are making comparisons to the birth defects that followed the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in WWII. They have numerous photos of infants born without brains, with their internal organs outside their bodies, without sexual organs, without spines, and the list of deformities goes on an on. Such birth defects were extremely rare in Iraq prior to the large scale use of DU. Weapons. Now they are commonplace. In hospitals across Iraq, the mothers are no longer asking, “Doctor, is it a boy or girl?” but rather, “Doctor, is it normal?” The photos are horrendous, they can be viewed onthe following website

Ross B. Mirkarimi, a spokesman at The Arms Control Research Centre stated:

“Unborn children of the region are being asked to pay the highest price, the integrity of their DNA.”

Prior to her death from leukemia in Sept. 2004, Nuha Al Radi , an accomplished Iraqi artist and author of the “Baghdad Diaries” wrote:

“Everyone seems to be dying of cancer. Every day one hears about another acquaintance or friend of a friend dying. How many more die in hospitals that one does not know? Apparently, over thirty percent of Iraqis have cancer, and there are lots of kids with leukemia.”

“The depleted uranium left by the U.S. bombing campaign has turned Iraq into a cancer-infested country. For hundreds of years to come, the effects of the uranium will continue to wreak havoc on Iraq and its surrounding areas.”

This excerpt in her diary was written in 1993, after Gulf War I (Approximately 300 tons of DU ordinance, mostly in desert areas) but before Operation Iraqi Freedom, (Est. 1,700 tons with much more near major population centers). So, it’s 5-6 times worse now than it was when she wrote than diary entry!! Estimates of the percentage of D.U. which was ‘aerosolized’ into fine uranium oxide dust are approximately 30-40%. That works out to over one million pounds of dust scattered throughout Iraq.

As a special advisor to the World Health Organization, the United Nations, and the Iraqi Ministry of Health, Dr. Ahmad Hardan has documented the effects of DU in Iraq between 1991 and 2002.

“American forces admit to using over 300 tons of DU weapons in 1991. The actual figure is closer to 800. This has caused a health crisis that has affected almost a third of a million people. As if that was not enough, America went on and used 200 tons more in Bagdad alone during the recent invasion.

I don”t know about other parts of Iraq, it will take me years to document that.

”In Basra, it took us two years to obtain conclusive proof of what DU does, but we now know what to look for and the results are terrifying.”

By far the most devastating effect is on unborn children. Nothing can prepare anyone for the sight of hundreds of preserved fetuses ” scarcely human in appearance. Iraq is now seeing babies with terribly foreshortened limbs, with their intestines outside their bodies, with huge bulging tumors where their eyes should be, or with a single eye-like Cyclops, or without eyes, or without limbs, and even without heads. Significantly, some of the defects are almost unknown outside textbooks showing the babies born near A-bomb test sites in the Pacific.

Dr. Hardan also states:

“I arranged for a delegation from Japan’s Hiroshima Hospital to come and share their expertise in the radiological diseases we

Are likely to face over time. The delegation told me the Americans had objected and they decided not to come. Similarly, a world famous German cancer specialist agreed to come, only to be told later that he would not be given permission to enter Iraq.”

Not only are we poisoning the people of Iraq and Afghanistan, but we are making a concerted effort to keep out specialists from other countries who can help. The U.S. Military doesn”t want the rest of the world to find out what we have done.

Such relatively swift development of cancers has been reported by doctors in hospitals treating civilians following NATO bombing with DU in Yugoslavia in 1998-1999 and the US military invasion of Iraq using DU for the first time in 1991. Medical experts report that this phenomenon of multiple malignancies from unrelated causes has been unknown until now and is a new syndrome associated with internal DU exposure.
Just 467 US personnel were wounded in the three-week Persian Gulf War in 1990-1991. Out of 580,400 soldiers who served in Gulf War I, 11,000 are dead, and by 2000 there were 325,000 on permanent medical disability. This astounding number of disabled vets means that a decade later, 56 percent of those soldiers who served in the first Gulf War now have medical problems.

Although not reported in the mainstream American press, a recent Tokyo tribunal, guided by the principles of International Criminal Law and International Humanitarian Law, found President George W. Bush guilty of war crimes. On March 14, 2004, Nao Shimoyachi, reported in The Japan Times that President Bush was found guilty “for attacking civilians with indiscriminate weapons and other arms,”and the “tribunal also issued recommendations for banning Depleted Uranium shells and other weapons that indiscriminately harm people.” Although this was a “Citizen’s Court” having no legal authority, the participants were sincere in their determination that international laws have been violated and a war crimes conviction is warranted.

Troops involved in actual combat are not the only servicemen reporting symptoms. Four soldiers from a New York Army National Guard company serving in Iraq are among several members of the same company, the 442nd Military Police, who say they have been battling persistent physical ailments that began last summer in the Iraqi town of Samawah.

Dr. Asaf Durakovic, UMRC founder, and nuclear medicine expert examined and tested nine soldiers from the company says that four “almost certainly” inhaled radioactive dust from exploded American shells manufactured with depleted uranium. Laboratory tests revealed traces of two manmade forms of uranium in urine samples from four of the soldiers.

If so, the men – Sgt. Hector Vega, Sgt. Ray Ramos, Sgt. Agustin Matos and Cpl. Anthony Yonnone – are the first confirmed cases of inhaled depleted uranium exposure from the current Iraq conflict.

The 442nd, made up for the most part of New York cops, firefighters and correction officers, is based in Orangeburg, Rockland County. Dispatched to Iraq in Easter of 2003, the unit’s members had been providing guard duty for convoys, running jails and training Iraqi police. The entire company is due to return home later this month.

“These are amazing results, especially since these soldiers were military police not exposed to the heat of battle,” said Dr. Asaf Duracovic, who examined the G.I.s and performed the testing.

In a group of eight U.S. led Coalition servicemen whose babies were born without eyes, seven are known to have been directly exposed to DU dust. In a much group (250 soldiers) exposed during the first Gulf war, 67% of the children conceived after the war had birth defects.

Dr. Durakovic’s UMRC research team also conducted a three-week field trip to Iraq in October of 2003. It collected about 100 samples of substances such as soil, civilian urine and the tissue from the corpses of Iraqi soldiers in 10 cities, including Baghdad, Basra and Najaf. Durakovic said preliminary tests show that the air, soil and water samples contained “hundreds to thousands of times” the normal levels of radiation.

“This high level of contamination is because much more depleted uranium was used this year than in (the Gulf War of) 1991,” Durakovic told The Japan Times.

“They are hampering efforts to prove the connection between Depleted Uranium and the illness,” Durakovic said

“They do not want to admit that they committed war crimes” by using weapons that kill indiscriminately, which are banned under international law.”

(NOTE ABOUT DR. DURAKOVIC; First, he was warned to stop his work, then he was fired from his position, then his house was ransacked, and he has also reported receiving death threats. Evidently the U.S. D.O.D is very keen on censoring DU whistle-blowers!)

Dr. Durakovic, UMRC research associates Patricia Horan and Leonard Dietz, published a unique study in the August 2002 issue of Military Medicine Medical Journal. The study is believed to be the first to look at inhaled DU among Gulf War veterans, using the ultrasensitive technique of thermal ionization mass spectrometry, which enabled them to easily distinguish between natural uranium and DU. The study, which examined British, Canadian and U.S. veterans, all suffering typical Gulf War Syndrome ailments, found that, nine years after the war, 14 of 27 veterans studied had DU in their urine. DU also was found in the lung and bone of a deceased Gulf War veteran. That no governmental study has been done on inhaled DU “amounts to a massive malpractice,” Dietz said in an interview.

The Japanese began studying DU effects in the southern Iraq in the summer of 2003. They had a Geiger counter which they watched go off the scale on many occasions. During their visit,a local hospital was treating upwards of 600 children per day, many of which suffered symptoms of internal poisoning by radiation. 600 children per day? How many of these children will get cancer and suffer and early and painful death?

“Ingested DU particles can cause up to 1,000 times the damage of an X-ray”, said Mary Olson, a nuclear waste specialist and biologist at the Nuclear Information and Resource Service in Washington D.C.

It is this difference in particle size as well as the dust’s crystalline structure that make the presence of DU dust in the environment such an extreme hazard, and which differentiates its properties from that of the natural uranium dust that is ubiquitous and to which we all are exposed every day, which seldom reaches such a small size. This point is being stressed, as comparing DU particles to much larger natural ones is misleading.

The U.S. Military and its supporters regularly quote a Rand Corp. Study which uses the natural uranium inhaled by miners.

Particles smaller than 10 microns can access the innermost recesses of lung tissue where they become permanently lodged. Furthermore, if the substance is relatively insoluble, such as the ceramic DU-oxide dust produced from burning DU, it will remain in place for decades, dissolving very slowly into the bloodstream and lymphatic fluids through the course of time. Studies have identified DU in the urine of Gulf War veterans nine years after that conflict, testifying to the permanence of ceramic DU-oxide in the lungs. Thus the effects are far different from natural uranium dust, whose coarse particles are almost entirely excreted by the body within 24 hours.

The military is aware of DU’s harmful effects on the human genetic code. A 2001 study of DU’s effect on DNA done by Dr. Alexandra C. Miller for the Armed Forces Radiobiology Research Institute in Bethesda, Md., indicates that DU’s chemical instability causes 1 million times more genetic damage than would be expected from its radiation effect alone.

Studies have shown that inhaled nano-particles are far more toxic than micro-sized particles of the same basic chemical composition. British toxicopathologist Vyvyan Howard has reported that the increased toxicity of the nano-particle is due to its size.

For example, when mice were exposed to virus-size particles of Teflon (0.13 microns) in a University of Rochester study, there were no ill effects. But when mice were exposed to nano-particles of Teflon for 15 minutes, nearly all the mice died within 4 hours.

“Exposure pathways for depleted uranium can be through the skin, by inhalation, and ingestion,” writes Lauren Moret, another DU researcher. “Nano-particles have high mobility and can easily enter the body. Inhalation of nano-particles of depleted uranium is the most hazardous exposure, because the particles pass through the lung-blood barrier directly into the blood.

“When inhaled through the nose, nano-particles can cross the olfactory bulb directly into the brain through the blood brain barrier, where they migrate all through the brain,” she wrote. “Many Gulf era soldiers exposed to depleted uranium have been diagnosed with brain tumors, brain damage and impaired thought processes. Uranium can interfere with the mitochondria, which provide energy for the nerve processes, and transmittal of the nerve signal across synapses in the brain.

Based on dissolution and excretion rate data, it is possible to approximate the amount of DU initially inhaled by these veterans. For the handful of veterans studied, this amount averaged 0.34 milligrams. Knowing the specific activity (radiation rate) for DU allows one to determine that the total radiation (alpha, beta and gamma) occurring from DU and its radioactive decay products within their bodies comes to about 26 radiation events every second, or 800 million events each year. At .34 milligrams per dose, there are over 10 trillion doses floating around Iraq and Afghanistan.

How many additional deaths are we talking about? In the aftermath of the first Gulf War, the UK Atomic Energy Authority came up with estimates for the potential effects of the DU contamination left by the conflict. It calculated that “this could cause “500,000 potential deaths”. This was “a theoretical figure”, it stressed, that indicated “a significant problem”.

The AEA’s calculation was made in a confidential memo to the privatized munitions company, Royal Ordnance, dated 30 April 1991. The high number of potential deaths was dismissed as “very far from realistic” by a British defense minister, Lord Gilbert. “Since the rounds were fired in the desert, many miles from the nearest village, it is highly unlikely that the local population would have been exposed to any significant amount of respirable oxide,” he said. These remarks were made prior to the more recent invasions of both Afghanistan and Iraq, where DU munitions were used on a larger scale in and near many of the most populated areas. If the amount of DU ordinance used in the first Gulf War was sufficient to cause 500,000 potential deaths, (had it been used near the populated areas), then what of the nearly six times that amount used in operation Iraqi Freedom, which was used in and near the major towns and cities? Extrapolating the U.K. AEA estimate with this amount gives a figure of potentially 3 million extra deaths from inhaling DU dust in Iraq alone, not including Afghanistan. This is about 11% of Iraq’s total population of 27 million. Dan Bishop, Ph.d chemist for IDUST feels that this estimate may be low, if the long life of DU dust is considered. In Afghanistan, the concentration in some areas is greater than Iraq.

What can an otherwise healthy person expect when inhaling the deadly dust? Captain Terry Riordon was a member of the Canadian Armed Forces serving in Gulf War I. He passed away in April 1999 at age 45. Terry left Canada a very fit man who did cross-country skiing and ran in marathons. On his return only two months later he could barely walk.

He returned to Canada in February 1991 with documented loss of motor control, chronic fatigue, respiratory difficulties, chest pain, difficulty breathing, sleep problems, short-term memory loss, testicle pain, body pains, aching bones, diarrhea, and depression. After his death, depleted uranium contamination was discovered in his lungs and bones. For eight years he suffered his innumerable ailments and struggled with the military bureaucracy and the system to get proper diagnosis and treatment. He had arranged, upon his death, to bequeath his body to the UMRC. Through his gift, the UMRC was able to obtain conclusive evidence that inhaling fine particles of depleted uranium dust completely destroyed his heath. How many Terry Riordans are out there among the troops being exposed, not to mention Iraqi and Afghan civilians?

Inhaling the dust will not kill large numbers of Iraqi and Afghan civilians right away, any more than it did Captain Riordan. Rather, what we will see is vast numbers of people who are chronically and severely ill, having their life spans drastically shortened, many with multiple cancers.

Melissa Sterry, another sick veteran, served for six months at a supply base in Kuwait during the winter of 1991-92. Part of her job with the National Guard’s Combat Equipment Company “A” was to clean out tanks and other armored vehicles that had been used during the war, preparing them for storage.

She said she swept out the armored vehicles, cleaning up dust, sand and debris, sometimes being ordered to help bury contaminated parts. In a telephone interview, she stated that after researching depleted uranium she chose not to take the military’s test because she could not trust the results. It is alarming that Melissa was stationed in Kuwait, not Iraq. Cleaning out tanks with DU dust was enough to make her ill.

In, 2003, the Christian Science Monitor sent reporters to Iraq to investigate long-term effects of depleted uranium. Staff writer Scott Peterson saw children playing on top of a burnt-out tank near a vegetable stand on the outskirts of Baghdad, a tank that had been destroyed by armor-piercing shells coated with depleted uranium. Wearing his mask and protective clothing, he pointed his Geiger counter toward the tank. It registered 1,000 times the normal background radiation. If the troops were on a mission of mercy to bring democracy to Iraq, wouldn”t keeping children away from such dangers be the top priority?

The laws of war prohibit the use of weapons that have deadly and inhumane effects beyond the field of battle. Nor can weapons be legally deployed in war when they are known to remain active, or cause harm after the war concludes. It is no surprise that the Japanese Court found President Bush guilty of war crimes.

Dr. Alim Yacoub of Basra University conducted an epidemiological study into incidences of malignancies in children under fifteen years old, in the Basra area (an area bombed with DU during the first Gulf War). They found over the 1990 to 1999 period, there was a 242% rise. That was before the recent invasion.

In Kosovo, similar spikes in cancer and birth defects were noticed by numerous international experts, although the quantity of DU weapons used was only a small fraction of what was used in Iraq.FIELD STUDY RESULTS FROM AFGHANISTAN

Verifiable statistics for Iraq will remain elusive for some time, but widespread field studies in Afghanistan point to the existence of a large scale public health disaster. In May of 2002, the UMRC (Uranium Medical Research Center) sent a field team to interview and examine residents and internally displaced people in Afghanistan. The UMRC field team began by first identifying several hundred people suffering from illnesses and medical conditions displaying clinical symptoms which are considered to be characteristic of radiation exposure. To investigate the possibility that the symptoms were due to radiation sickness, the UMRC team collected urine specimens and soil samples, transporting them to an independent research lab in England.

UMRC’s Field Team found Afghan civilians with acute symptoms of radiation poisoning, along with chronic symptoms of internal uranium contamination, including congenital problems in newborns. Local civilians reported large, dense dust clouds and smoke plumes rising from the point of impact, an acrid smell, followed by burning of the nasal passages, throat and upper respiratory tract. Subjects in all locations presented identical symptom profiles and chronologies. The victims reported symptoms including pain in the cervical column, upper shoulders and basal area of the skull, lower back/kidney pain, joint and muscle weakness, sleeping difficulties, headaches, memory problems and disorientation.

Two additional scientific study teams were sent to Afghanistan. The first arrived in June 2002, concentrating on the Jalalabad region. The second arrived four months later, broadening the study to include the capital Kabul, which has a population of nearly 3.5 million people. The city itself contains the highest recorded number of fixed targets during Operation Enduring Freedom. For the study’s purposes, the vicinity of three major bomb sites were examined. It was predicted that signatures of depleted or enriched uranium would be found in the urine and soil samples taken during the research. The team was unprepared for the shock of its findings, which indicated in both Jalalabad and Kabul, DU was causing the high levels of illness. Tests taken from a number of Jalalabad subjects showed concentrations 400% to 2000% above that for normal populations, amounts which have not been recorded in civilian studies before.

Those in Kabul who were directly exposed to US-British precision bombing showed extreme signs of contamination, consistent with uranium exposure. These included pains in joints, back/kidney pain, muscle weakness, memory problems and confusion and disorientation. Those exposed to the bombing report symptoms of flu-type illnesses, bleeding, runny noses and blood-stained mucous. How many of these people will suffer a painful and early death from cancer? Even the study team itself complained of similar symptoms during their stay. Most of these symptoms last for days or months.

In August of 2002, UMRC completed its preliminary analysis of the results from Nangarhar. Without exception, every person donating urine specimens tested positive for uranium contamination. The specific results indicated an astoundingly high level of contamination; concentrations were 100 to 400 times greater than those of the Gulf War Veterans tested in 1999. A researcher reported. “We took both soil and biological samples, and found considerable presence in urine samples of radioactivity; the heavy concentration astonished us. They were beyond our wildest imagination.”

In the fall of 2002, the UMRC field team went back to Afghanistan for a broader survey, and revealed a potentially larger exposure than initially anticipated. Approximately 30% of those interviewed in the affected areas displayed symptoms of radiation sickness. New born babies were among those displaying symptoms, with village elders reporting that over 25% of the infants were inexplicably ill.

How widespread and extensive is the exposure? A quote from the UMRC field report reads:

“The UMRC field team was shocked by the breadth of public health impacts coincident with the bombing. Without exception, at every bombsite investigated, people are ill. A significant portion of the civilian population presents symptomsconsistent with internal contamination by uranium.”

In Afghanistan, unlike Iraq, UMRC lab results indicated high concentrations of NON-DEPLETED URANIUM, with the concentrations being much higher than in DU victims from Iraq. Afghanistan was used as a testing ground for a new generation of “bunker buster” bombs containing high concentrations of other uranium alloys.

“A significant portion of the civilian population”? It appears that by going after a handful of terrorists in Afghanistan we have poisoned a huge number of innocent civilians, with a disproportionate number of them being children.

The military has found depleted uranium in the urine of some soldiers but contends it was not enough to make them seriously ill in most cases. Critics have asked for more sensitive, more expensive testing.

————————————

According to an October 2004 Dispatch from the Italian Military Health Observatory, a total of 109 Italian soldiers have died thus far due to exposure to depleted uranium. A spokesman at the Military Health Observatory, Domenico Leggiero, states “The total of 109 casualties exceeds the total number of persons dying as a consequence of road accidents. Anyone denying the significance of such data is purely acting out of ill faith, and the truth is that our soldiers are dying out there due to a lack of adequate protection against depleted uranium”. Members of the Observatory have petitioned for an urgent hearing “in order to study effective prevention and safeguard measures aimed at reducing the death-toll amongst our serving soldiers”.

There were only 3,000 Italian soldiers sent to Iraq, and they were there for a short time. The number of 109 represents about 3.6% of the total. If the same percentage of Iraqis get a similar exposure, that would amount to 936,000. As Iraqis are permanently living in the same contaminated environment, their percentage will be higher.

The Pentagon/DoD have interfered with UMRC’s ability to have its studies published by managing, a progressive and persistent misinformation program in the press against UMRC, and through the use of its control of science research grants to refute UMRC’s scientific findings and destroy the reputation of UMRC’s scientific staff, physicians and laboratories. UMRC is the first independent research organization to find Depleted Uranium in the bodies of US, UK and Canadian Gulf War I veterans and has subsequently, following Operation Iraqi Freedom, found Depleted Uranium in the water, soils and atmosphere of Iraq as well as biological samples donated by Iraqi civilians. Yet the first thing that comes up on Internet searches are these supposed “studies repeatedly showing DU to be harmless.” The technique is to approach the story as a debate between government and independent experts in which public interest is stimulated by polarizing the issues rather than telling the scientific and medical truth. The issues are systematically confused and misinformed by government, UN regulatory agencies (WHO, UNEP, IAEA, CDC, DOE, etc) and defense sector (military and the weapons developers and manufacturers).

Dr. Yuko Fujita, an assistant professor at Keio University, Japan who examined the effects of radioactivity in Iraq from May to June, 2003, said : “I doubt that Iraq is fabricating data because in fact there are many children suffering from leukemia in hospitals,” Fujita said. “As a result of the Iraq war, the situation will be desperate in some five to 10 years.”

The March 14, 2004 Tokyo Citizen’s Tribunal that “convicted” President Bush gave the following summation regarding DU weapons: (This court was a citizen’s court with no binding legal authority)

1. Their use has indiscriminate effects;

2. Their use is out of proportion with the pursuit of military objectives;

3. Their use adversely affects the environment in a widespread, long term and severe manner;

4. Their use causes superfluous injury and unnecessary suffering.

Two years ago, President Bush withdrew the United States as a signatory to the International Criminal Court’s statute, which has been ratified by all other Western democracies. The White House actually seeks to immunize U.S. leaders from war crimes prosecutions entirely. It has also demanded express immunity from ICC prosecution for American nationals.

CONCLUSIONS:

If terrorists succeeded in spreading something throughout the U.S. that ended up causing hundreds of thousands of cancer cases and birth defects over a period of many years, they would be guilty of a crime against humanity that far surpasses the Sept. 11th attacks in scope and severity. Although not deliberate, with our military campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan, we have done just that. If the physical environment is so unsafe and unhealthy that one cannot safely breath, then the outer trappings of democracy have little meaning. At least under Saddam, the Iraqi people could stay healthy and conceive normal children. Few Americans are aware that in getting rid of Saddam, we left something much worse in his place. Source

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Soon in Libya the cancers and birth defects should begin, if they are not already happening. I would imagine DU was used there as well. Syria is next.

Stop Watching Us.

The revelations about the National Security Agency’s surveillance apparatus, if true, represent a stunning abuse of our basic rights. We demand the U.S. Congress reveal the full extent of the NSA’s spying programs.
—————————————————————-

Dear Members of Congress,

We write to express our concern about recent reports published in the Guardian and the Washington Post, and acknowledged by the Obama Administration, which reveal secret spying by the National Security Agency (NSA) on phone records and Internet activity of people in the United States.

The Washington Post and the Guardian recently published reports based on information provided by an intelligence contractor showing how the NSA and the FBI are gaining broad access to data collected by nine of the leading U.S. Internet companies and sharing this information with foreign governments. As reported, the U.S. government is extracting audio, video, photographs, e-mails, documents, and connection logs that enable analysts to track a person’s movements and contacts over time. As a result, the contents of communications of people both abroad and in the U.S. can be swept in without any suspicion of crime or association with a terrorist organization.

Leaked reports also published by the Guardian and confirmed by the Administration reveal that the NSA is also abusing a controversial section of the PATRIOT Act to collect the call records of millions of Verizon customers. The data collected by the NSA includes every call made, the time of the call, the duration of the call, and other “identifying information” for millions of Verizon customers, including entirely domestic calls, regardless of whether those customers have ever been suspected of a crime. The Wall Street Journal has reported that other major carriers, including AT&T and Sprint, are subject to similar secret orders.

This type of blanket data collection by the government strikes at bedrock American values of freedom and privacy. This dragnet surveillance violates the First and Fourth Amendments of the U.S. Constitution, which protect citizens’ right to speak and associate anonymously, guard against unreasonable searches and seizures, and protect their right to privacy.

We are calling on Congress to take immediate action to halt this surveillance and provide a full public accounting of the NSA’s and the FBI’s data collection programs. We call on Congress to immediately and publicly:

Enact reform this Congress to Section 215 of the USA PATRIOT Act, the state secrets privilege, and the FISA Amendments Act to make clear that blanket surveillance of the Internet activity and phone records of any person residing in the U.S. is prohibited by law and that violations can be reviewed in adversarial proceedings before a public court;

Create a special committee to investigate, report, and reveal to the public the extent of this domestic spying. This committee should create specific recommendations for legal and regulatory reform to end unconstitutional surveillance;

Hold accountable those public officials who are found to be responsible for this unconstitutional surveillance.

Look for US media reports on this event. If you find very few, don’t be surprised. A Media Blackout is an indicator, of how the American public is manipulated and the truth is kept from them.Absolutely shameful.So what else is the US main stream media keeping from Americans?Then we have this loss of Freedom

Once demonstrations wrapped up organizers posted a message on Reddit, saying “It’s isn’t over!” – calling for an as yet unspecified Step 2 of the protest. They said details will be made public on Monday.

At the end of this video James Clapper states, they do not collect information/data on millions of Americans. That of course is blatant lie, as we now know. Making a statement as such, under oath is a crime.

If you lie to Congress, it is a felony and you can/should go to prison for it.

On March 12 when Sen Ron Wyden questioned Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, who was testifying in the Senate under oath, the senator, like any good lawyer, knew exactly what he was asking and chose his words carefully.

“Does the NSA collect any type of data at all on millions or hundreds of millions of Americans?” Wyden asked. He didn’t ask whether the NSA is reading our emails or listening to our phone calls. He used the all-inclusive “any type of data at all” and he was questioning the chief intelligence officer of the United States — and man who is perfectly aware of the breadth and nuance that attaches to the term “data.” Clapper doesn’t need a staff member to tutor him on the meaning of metadata — that is, to explain that this too is a form of data.

In a letter to Senate Intelligence Committee Chairwoman Dianne Feinstein, Clapper now claims that when he denied the NSA is collecting data on million of Americans, “my answer focused on the collection of the content of communications.”

He could have said: “I gave an answer to a question I hadn’t been asked.”

He now says: “My response was clearly erroneous — for which I apologize.”

To call it erroneous is to imply that he made a mistake rather than that he was intentionally deceptive. That admission would be a confession to breaking the law. At this point, Clapper seems to think he can brush aside accusations that he committed perjury.

Several senators are clearly unimpressed by Clapper’s explanation.

“It now appears clear that the director of national intelligence, James Clapper, lied under oath to Congress and the American people,” Rep. Justin Amash (R-Mich.) tweeted.

“Perjury is a serious crime … [and] Clapper should resign immediately,” he said.

Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) said that Clapper had broken the law, comparing him to NSA leaker Edward Snowden, who has been charged with espionage.

“Mr. Clapper lied in Congress in defiance of the law in the name of security,” Paul said on CNN last month. “Mr. Snowden told the truth in the name of privacy. So, I think there will be a judgment, because both of them broke the law, and history will have to determine.”

Wyden, who knew about the NSA programs when he pressed Clapper on them, said that Clapper was preventing Congress from conducting oversight.

“This job cannot be done responsibly if Senators aren’t getting straight answers to direct questions,” Wyden said in a statement last month.

The director of a top American spy agency said Tuesday that he believed that material from Iraq’s illicit weapons program had been transported into Syria and perhaps other countries as part of an effort by the Iraqis to disperse and destroy evidence immediately before the recent war.

The official, James R. Clapper Jr., a retired lieutenant general, said satellite imagery showing a heavy flow of traffic from Iraq into Syria, just before the American invasion in March, led him to believe that illicit weapons material ”unquestionably” had been moved out of Iraq.

”I think people below the Saddam Hussein-and-his-sons level saw what was coming and decided the best thing to do was to destroy and disperse,” General Clapper, who leads the National Imagery and Mapping Agency, said at a breakfast with reporters.

He said he was providing a personal assessment. But he said ”the obvious conclusion one draws” was that there ”may have been people leaving the scene, fleeing Iraq, and unquestionably, I am sure, material.” A spokesman for General Clapper’s agency, David Burpee, said he could not provide further evidence to support the general’s statement.

But other American intelligence officials said General Clapper’s theory was among those being pursued in Iraq by David Kay, a former United Nations weapons inspector who is leading the American effort to uncover the weapons cited by the Bush administration as the major reason for going to war against Iraq.

General Clapper’s comments came as the Central Intelligence Agency prepared to defend its prewar assertions that Iraq had chemical and biological weapons and that it sought to reconstitute its nuclear program. The director of central intelligence, George J. Tenet, has written a letter to the chairman and vice chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence saying the agency will be ready to provide an assessment by late November.

In the letter, the contents of which were described by several intelligence officials on Tuesday, Mr. Tenet proposed that a team headed by John McLaughlin, the deputy director of central intelligence, provide a briefing for the committee after Nov. 20, when the agency’s internal review is expected to be completed.

General Clapper’s agency is responsible for interpreting satellite photographs and other imagery. He declined to answer a question about whether he believed that illicit Iraqi weapons material might have been smuggled into any other country. Source

It’s been a few hundred years since the Third Amendment was written to keep King George from quartering British troops in American homes, but a lawsuit just filed in Nevada suggests it’s as relevant as ever.

The framers of the Constitution ratified the Third Amendment to ensure citizens would never again have to accommodate soldiers, but a few centuries later it’s become more-or-less an antiquated law that’s rarely referenced in federal court. That changed recently when a family from Henderson, Nevada accused the local police department of constitutional violations after officers of the law allegedly took residence in two neighborhood homes.

According to a legal filing first obtained by Courthouse News Service, a handful of Henderson Police Department officers and the city itself are being sued for an array of charges — including Third Amendment violations — over an incident that mirrors the making of the American Revolution.

Attorneys for the plaintiffs say police officers demanded they be allowed to occupy two homes owned by their clients on the city’s Eveningside Avenue in 2011 in order to conduct an investigation involving a neighbor’s residence. When the owners refused to comply with the request, they were reportedly arrested for obstruction and brought to jail.

Police were investigating an incident at 363 Eveningside Avenue that July when Officer Christopher Worley called up the occupant of a neighboring property, Anthony Mitchell, and said he’d need to use his house in order to gain a ‘tactical advantage’ over the neighbor’s residence. Mitchell reportedly made it clear that he did not want to get involved in the probe and told Worley he would not be able to offer assistance. According to the lawsuit, Officer David Cawthorn, Sgt. Michael Waller and Worley all then “conspired among themselves to force Anthony Mitchell out of his residence and to occupy his home for their own use.”

“It was determined to move to 367 Eveningside and attempt to contact Mitchell. If Mitchell answered the door he would be asked to leave. If he refused to leave he would be arrested for Obstructing a Police Officer. If Mitchell refused to answer the door, force entry would be made and Mitchell would be arrested,” the report determined.

Moments later, the officers “arrayed themselves in front of plaintiff Anthony Mitchell’s house and prepared to execute their plan,” after which they “loudly commanded” they be let inside. Seconds later, Mitchell’s door was knocked down with a metal battering ram and the police entered his home.

“As plaintiff Anthony Mitchell stood in shock, the officers aimed their weapons at Anthony Mitchell and shouted obscenities at him and ordered him to lie down on the floor,” the suit alleges.

As the police moved into the home, Mitchell was reportedly called an “asshole” by the cops, ordered to crawl on the floor and then shot several times with non-lethal ‘pepperball rounds’ from close range. He was then arrested for obstructing an officer while the cops combed through his house without permission, but not before they also opened fire at the plaintiff’s dog, prompting it to howl “in fear and pain.”

At the same time, officers approached Anthony’s parents down the block at 362 Eveningside and asked father Michael Mitchell if he’d accompany them back to a local ‘command center’ to assist with negotiating the surrender of the neighbor suspected of domestic violence. When he got there, though, he became concerned that the cops had tricked him into leaving so they could try to gain access to yet another home. Michael Mitchell then tried to head back home, but when he left the command center he was arrested, handcuffed and placed in the back of a cop car.

Attorney for the family say there was no reasonable grounds to detain Michael Mitchell, nor probable cause to suspect him of committing any crime. That didn’t keep officers from holding both him and his son Anthony for nine hours, however, before they were ultimately released after posting bond.

All criminal counts against the Mitchells were later dismissed with prejudiced, but the family has now lobbed charges of their own. Their attorney is asking for a trial by jury to hear the case and ideally award his clients punitive damages for violations of the Third, Fourth and Fourteenth Amendments, assault and battery, conspiracy, defamation, abuse of process, malicious prosecution, negligence and emotional distress. Source

Grant F. Smith, research director of IRmep, briefs several hundred Houston area non-profit and business leaders about why Americans are turning away from Israel and challenging Israel’s U.S. lobby. Review of major espionage, propaganda and wealth transfer initiatives. Analysis of new polling data on American public opinion and how the growing breech between opinion and policy may be driving a higher score on Transparency International’s “perceptions of corruption” index.

Netanyahu worked inside nuclear smuggling ring
Counterespionage debriefing reveals how Israel targeted US. On June 27, 2012, the FBI partially declassified and released seven additional pages[.pdf] from a 1985–2002 investigation into how a network of front companies connected to the Israeli Ministry of Defense illegally smuggled nuclear triggers out of the U.S.* The newly released FBI files detail how Richard Kelly Smyth — who was convicted of running a U.S. front company — met with Benjamin Netanyahu in Israel during the smuggling operation. At that time, Netanyahu worked at the Israeli node of the smuggling network, Heli Trading Company. Netanyahu, who currently serves as Israel’s prime minister, recently issued a gag order that the smuggling network’s unindicted ringleader refrain from discussing “Project Pinto.” More

So how many violators of Human rights get aid from the US one has to ask? There are many more. I imagine it is a very long list.

By Assisting the Rebels in Syria, the US is also helping Al Qaeda.

Analysis: Study shows rise of al Qaeda affiliate in Syria

By Nic Robertson and Paul Cruickshank

A jihadist group with links to al Qaeda has become the most effective of the different factions fighting the regime, according to a new analysis, and now has some 5,000 fighters.

The group is Jabhat al-Nusra, which was designated an al Qaeda affiliate by the United States government last month. It is led by veterans of the Iraqi insurgency “and has shown itself to be the principal force against Assad and the Shabiha,” according to the study.

CNN obtained an advance copy of the analysis, set to be released Tuesday by the Quilliam Foundation, a counterterrorism policy institute based in London.

“The civil war in Syria is a gift from the sky for al-Nusra; they are coasting off its energy,” the lead author of the report, Noman Benotman, told CNN.

Isn’t it illegal to help terrorists? Stop helping the Rebels.Maybe Americans should be telling the Government that.

Repeated calls to address problems at facility ‘met with silence’ by state and federal officials
February 16 2013

Reports that a storage tank for nuclear waste at the Hanford Nuclear facility in Washington state–one of the most contaminated nuclear waste sites in the country–is leaking radioactive waste were confirmed that state’s governor Friday.

The news raises concerns about the integrity of similar tanks at south-central Washington’s Hanford nuclear reservation and puts added pressure on the federal government to resolve construction problems with the plant being built to alleviate environmental and safety risks from the waste.

The tanks, which are already long past their intended 20-year life span, hold millions of gallons of a highly radioactive stew left from decades of plutonium production for nuclear weapons.

On Friday, the U.S. Department of Energy said liquid levels are decreasing in one of 177 underground tanks at the site. Monitoring wells near the tank have not detected higher radiation levels, but Inslee said the leak could be in the range of 150 gallons to 300 gallons over the course of a year and poses a potential long-term threat to groundwater and rivers.

The Northwest News Network, in an interview with Tom Carpenter, head of the Seattle-based watchdog group Hanford Challenge, found that Friday’s news highlights the fact that problems have been endemic to the site for years and there’s not even a place to transfer the contained waste or a place to return any that may be recovered from spills or leaks.

“If you have another leak, what do you do?,” ask Carpenter. “You don’t have any strategy for that. And the Hanford Advisory Board and the state of Washington and Hanford Challenge and others have been calling upon the Department of Energy to build new tanks. That call has been met with silence.”

Though more than a third of the 149 old single-shell tanks at the site are suspected to have leaked up to 1 million gallons of nuclear waste over the years, this is the first confirmed leak since federal authorities completed a so-called stabilization program in 2005 that was supposed to have removed most liquids from the vulnerable single-shell tanks.

The new leak calls into question the effectiveness of that program, and state officials said it increased the urgency of ending roadblocks to a permanent storage solution for the 53 million gallons of waste housed at the sprawling site that was a center for atomic bomb-making material after World War II. Source

Also while speaking of weapons grade Plutonium.

Liquid bomb-grade uranium to be shipped secretly from Chalk River to U.S.

By Ian MacLeod, February 10, 2013

OTTAWA — Nuclear officials are preparing to secretly transport a toxic stew of liquid bomb-grade uranium by armed convoy from Chalk River to a South Carolina reprocessing site.

The “high priority” mission marks the first time authorities have attempted to truck highly-enriched uranium (HEU) in a liquid solution, prompting nuclear safety advocacy groups on both sides of the border to sound the alarm for greater government scrutiny.

The Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission (CNSC) has confirmed the plan to the Citizen. It follows Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s commitment at last year’s global nuclear security summit to return HEU inventories to the United States to lessen the risk of nuclear terrorism.

Officials with CNSC and Atomic Energy of Canada Ltd., which operates Chalk River Laboratories, say federal law prohibits publicly releasing details about the mission, including the number of transport truck trips involved, the routing through Eastern Ontario and the timing.
But documents filed with the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) suggest many truck trips will be required and could begin in August.

This does seem to be an unprecedented, cross-border shipment of liquid high-level waste and, for that reason alone, it needs the highest order of environmental review on both sides of the border,” says Tom Clements, a South Carolina campaign co-ordinator for Friends of the Earth and former executive-director of the Nuclear Control Institute in Washington.

Small amounts of HEU in solid form have long been exported, without incident, by the U.S. to Canada for the production of medical isotopes at Chalk River’s NRU reactor.

What’s different this time is the HEU to be transported for reprocessing at the U.S. government’s Savannah River Site is in liquid form and believed to from Chalk River’s controversial Fissile Solution Storage Tank, or FISST.

The 24,000-litre waste tank is largely unknown outside the nuclear establishment, but within the industry in Canada and internationally, it is a source of persistent unease.

The double-walled, stainless-steel vessel contains 17 years’ worth of an intensely radioactive acidic solution from the production of molybdenum-99, a vital medical isotope produced by irradiating HEU “targets.

The liquid must be carefully monitored, mixed and warmed to prevent it from solidifying and — in a worst-case scenario — potentially achieving a self-sustaining chain reaction of fissioning atoms called criticality.

The energy and heat from such a chain reaction could potentially rupture the tank, release the solution into the environment and endanger anyone nearby. There would be no danger of a nuclear explosion.

Not surprisingly, FISST is under constant surveillance by the International Atomic Energy Commission for any hint of an accidental atomic chain reaction.

Taken out of service around 2003, FISST is believed to be near-full and sitting inside a thick, in-ground concrete vault in a building two hours northwest of Ottawa. In the years since, HEU-bearing liquid waste produced during isotope production has been solidified and placed in secure storage.

The FISST’s chief ingredient is an estimated 175 kilograms of HEU containing 93 per cent uranium-235, the isotope that sustains a fission chain reaction. Also present are plutonium, tritium, other fission products and mercury. About 20 kilograms to 45 kilograms of HEU is considered sufficient to construct a small nuclear weapon or a Hiroshima-sized bomb.

NRC documents note that the radioactive payload to be removed from Canada, “is highly enriched target material,” containing 7.2 grams of HEU per litre, which precisely matches the description and composition of the FISST’s contents.

Atomic Energy of Canada Ltd. had planned to take until 2020 to resolve the FISST issue, but CNSC staff have said they want it dealt with during Chalk River Laboratories’ current five-year-operating licence, which expires Oct. 31, 2016.

Earlier this month, Clements made a formal request to the U.S. Department of Energy for an extensive and public environmental hearing before the radioactive shipments are approved. He said a 1996 U.S. environmental review of HEU shipments to Savannah River did not consider the implications surrounding liquid HEU.

The Canadian group Concerned Citizens for Nuclear Responsibility is urging Minister of Natural Resources Joe Oliver to do the same here.

But NRC documents on the issue call for an “expedited” certification review of a plan to transport the HEU liquid waste in stainless-steel casks originally designed to carry dry nuclear waste, such as spent fuel rods from reactors.

NAC International Inc., a U.S. company specializing in nuclear packaging and transport, is seeking NRC and CNSC approvals to use its NAC-LWT (legal weight truck) cask system to haul the radioactive liquid from Canada, something that the CNSC and other experts say has never been done before.

In documents, NRC officials characterize the request as, “a high priority for review to support the (U.S.) Department of Energy’s Global Threat Reduction Program,” to reduce civilian use of weapons-grade uranium. The company filed the request, with supporting technical data, on Dec. 28.

In a Jan. 31 reply to the company, the NRC said it wants the company to produce more technical information about the viability and safety of using the casks to transport liquid HEU. It gave the company two weeks to comply, adding if all goes well, approval could be expected by May 10.

The company did not respond to requests for comments late last week.

The CNSC has a separate review underway of the proposed change to the cask payload, one of several approvals required on both sides of the border before the radioactive waste can be moved along continental roads and highways.

No HEU transport is authorized without CNSC approval in order to ensure safety to the public, workers and the environment,” it said in a statement Friday. “Safety requirements must be met in accordance with CNSC and Canada’s Transportation of Dangerous Goods Regulations.

These containers must undergo stringent testing, which simulate both normal and hypothetical conditions of transport, including free-drop testing, puncture testing and thermal testing.

Carriers must be specially trained and a transportation security plan must also be approved, it said.

The primary purpose of this plan is to assure that the nuclear material to be transported will receive adequate physical protection against any threats that may arise during its transport.

AECL is generally tight-lipped about FISST. A spokesman Friday would only say that “AECL is participating in HEU repatriation activities.

NAC International, in filings with the NRC, proposes to that each cask carry a total of up to 257 litres of HEU solution. Each cask would hold four smaller containers, with each of those holding up to 64 litres. The estimated HEU content in each would be about 1.8 grams.
At Savannah River, the liquid is to be taken to a complex known as H-Canyon and down-blended in to low-enriched uranium fuel for U.S. power and research reactors. Source

Action Alert February 4, 2013

Please write to U.S. and Canadian Authorities

Proposed Import and Transport of Liquid Radioactive Wastes

Bearing Highly Enriched Uranium (HEU) to the U.S. from Canada

The U.S. Dept. of Energy (DOE) is planning to import and transport liquid radioactive waste containing weapons-grade highly-enriched uranium (HEU) from Canada’s Chalk River Laboratories (CRNL) to the DOE’s Savannah River Site (SRS) in South Carolina.

The proposed movement of liquid HEU-bearing radioactive waste was confirmed at the recent SRS (Savannah River Site) Citizens Advisory Board meeting in Augusta, Georgia on January 28-29. This proposal is (so far as we are aware) the first of it’s kind.

We are asking citizens and elected officials to send an urgent request to the U.S. Dept. of Energy’s SRS NEPA officer, Drew Grainger, who can be emailed at:drew.grainger@srs.gov
(NEPA is the U.S. National Environmental Protection Act.)

Tell DOE that a Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement (SEIS) must be done on the proposed import to the U.S.A. of HEU-bearing liquid radioactive waste from Canada’s Chalk River. (See Tom Clements’ letter, below, as a sample of concerns to be raised.)

No SEIS has yet been done. Such an SEIS is absolutely necessary so that an informed public policy discussion can occur.

Also, please write to the Canadian Minister of Natural Resources, the Honourable Joe Oliver asking him to ensure that a full Environmental Assessment is conducted under Canadian Law, with an independent panel and public hearings E-mail him at joe.oliver@parl.gc.ca

SRS is where 35 MT of weapons-grade plutonium was made. SRS still processes tritium for all US nuclear weapons and is where a $7- billion plutonium-based nuclear fuel (MOX, or “mixed oxide” nuclear fuel) plant is being built.

Romney’s ties with voting machines makers raise alarms

October 22, 2012,

Producers and investors of voting machines that have previously shown susceptibility to fraud in Ohio have been found to donate hundreds of thousands of dollars to the Romney campaign, raising concern about a dangerous bias in a major swing state.

Directors at Hart Intercivic, a national provider of voting systems, were found donating vast amounts of money to the Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney. Some of the company’s major investors are also big-time donors to the GOP campaign. Voters may feel uneasy because the voting machines produced by Hart Intercivic were found to be prone to corruption, according to an article written by Forbes contributor Rick Ungar.

A 2007 test by the Ohio secretary of state found that five electronic voting systems that were to be used in the 2008 election were vulnerable to fraud. These machines, produced by Hart Intercivic and employed throughout Hamilton County, were susceptible to malignant software and having their locks picked. A study testing the security of the machines found that hand-held devices were able to plug false vote counts into the machines.

Two members of Hart Intercivic’s board of directors, Neil Tuch and Jeff Bohl, have donated to the “Romney for President” campaign. Bohl gave the Republican nominee a total of $4,000. He also gave $250 to Barack Obama, perhaps after realizing the mistake he made, working for a company in which non-partisanship is important.

Additionally, one of Hart Intercivic’s main investors is HIG Capital, a multi-billion dollar investment fund with employees who are some of Romney’s wealthiest supporters. At least two of the five seats on the board of directors belong to HIG Capital. The investment fund’s founder Tony Tamer, along with three other HIG directors, are some of Romney’s most significant donors.

Douglas Berman and Brian Schwartz, two of those directors, were at Romney’s fundraiser in Boca Raton, Florida, on May 17. The cost of attendance was $50,000 per head. Overall, HIG is the Romney campaign’s 11th-largest contributor.

To make the association even more distinct, one of HIG’s investors is Solamere Capital, which was founded by Romney’s son, Tagg, and his campaign finance chair, Spencer Zwick. Many of Romney’s family members, including himself and his wife, have invested in the Solamere Capital.

No Republican candidate has ever won the presidency without winning the state of Ohio. With a state carrying so much weight in the election turnout, any potential bias among those who produce the voting machines could sound alarm bells, especially if the machines have previously showed signs of failure.

Hamilton County, where the machines will be used during the 2012 election, includes Cincinnati and is the third most-populous county in Ohio. It has a population of more than 800,000. Source

Vote rigging in machines

Rep. Tom Feeney (Fmr. Speaker of The House in Florida) employed this man from Oviedo, FL to rig elections and flip them 51% to 49%. Exit polling data was proven to be significantly different than the published results. Rep. Feeney was also the lobbyist for Yang Enterprises, the company who delivered the program.

Princeton University demonstration of a hacked Diebold electronic voting machine found on Princeton’s website.

DESTROY THE RIGGED VOTING MACHINES…AND RETURN TO PAPER BALLOTS!!!

Seems to me any voting machine can be hacked one way or the other.

They are just computers, run by computer programs. Nothing more nothing less. Voting machines cannot be trusted to give accurate results.

Programs can be created to do just about anything you wish.

Election fraud storm-clouds loom over US presidential race

Oct 21, 2012

By Kevin Barrett

If the Republicans steal another presidential election, this time from the first African-American president, and award it to a career criminal responsible for flooding America’s black neighborhoods with crack cocaine… America might experience a wave of protests that would make the aftermaths of the Martin Luther King assassination… look like a picnic in the park.”

Will Mitt Romney try to steal the US presidential election?
And if he does, will Americans — especially African-Americans — take to the streets?

These are the two key questions of the 2012 election season. Yet the mainstream media, owned by the same interests behind the “black-box” voting machines that manufacture election outcomes, won’t touch the issue.

Despite the thunderous silence of the media, all signs are pointing towards another neocon-Republican election theft attempt, like the successful ones of 2000 and 2004.

One warning sign: The appearance of blatantly fraudulent public opinion polls giving Romney a substantial lead over Obama. While all other polls show that Obama has enough of an edge in the swing states to constitute an electoral-college “firewall,” Gallup’s national polls — using a “likely voter” model that apparently posits an inverse correlation between voting and skin pigmentation — currently give Romney an edge of more than five points in the popular vote.

Why would the Republicans falsify a prominent national poll? To give Romney “momentum,” and create the illusion of plausibility when rigged voting machines hand him a “surprise victory.”

But why just one poll? Because it’s doable. Rigging ALL the polls is a herculean task, even for a party backed by the world’s biggest crime syndicate.

Is there any evidence that Romney will try to steal the swing states he needs to capture the White House? Unfortunately, yes.

Believe it or not, Romney actually OWNS the black-box voting machines that will fabricate — not count — the votes in Ohio, the most important swing state. (“Black box” machines are designed with no transparent link between the votes that go in, and the “results” that come out.)
As my recent radio guest Bob Fitrakis and two co-authors explain in their article Does the Romney Family Now Own Your e-Vote?

Will you cast your vote this fall on a faulty electronic machine that’s partly owned by the Romney Family? Will that machine decide whether Romney will then inherit the White House?

Through a closely held equity fund called Solamere, Mitt Romney and his wife, son and brother are major investors in an investment firm called H.I.G. Capital. H.I.G. in turn holds a majority share and three out of five board members in Hart Intercivic, a company that owns the notoriously faulty electronic voting machines that will count the ballots in swing state Ohio November 7. Hart machines will also be used elsewhere in the United States.

In other words, a candidate for the presidency of the United States, and his brother, wife and son, have a straight-line financial interest in the voting machines that could decide this fall’s election. These machines cannot be monitored by the public. But they will help decide who “owns” the White House.

They are especially crucial in Ohio, without which no Republican candidate has ever won the White House. In 2004, in the dead of election night, an electronic swing of more than 300,000 votes switched Ohio from the John Kerry column to George W. Bush, giving him a second term. A virtual statistical impossibility, the 6-plus% shift occurred between 12:20 and 2am election night as votes were being tallied by a GOP-controlled information technology firm on servers in a basement in Chattanooga, Tennessee… (Read the complete article here.)

And it gets worse. Karl Rove and the Republican election fraud machine not only stole the 2004 elections, they murdered the computer expert who orchestrated the theft, Mike Connell, shortly before he was scheduled to testify in court against Rove.

Since the appearance of black box voting machines, a massive five-point gap has opened up between actual vote counts, as documented by exit polls, and the “official results” manufactured by the machines. In every single case, the five-point edge favors the Republicans. This should not be surprising, since the voting machines (like the votes they fabricate) are manufactured by Republicans.

Last summer, here in Wisconsin, the exit polls showed that Republican Governor Scott Walker did not win his recall election. But the black-box machines gave him the obligatory five-point Republican edge.

Former President Jimmy Carter says that American elections, unlike elections in banana republics, are so hopelessly corrupt that they are not even worth monitoring. Carter should know; he was overthrown in an “October Surprise” coup d’état by the Bush Crime Family in 1980, as revealed by former Bush Administration official Barbara Honegger.

Since the Republicans blatantly and shamelessly stole the presidential elections in 2000 and 2004, why did they refrain from stealing the 2008 elections? Perhaps Obama’s margin of victory was simply too wide for a “surprise McCain win” to be even remotely plausible. And perhaps they actually didn’t mind allowing Obama, a timid, compromising Democrat, to put anti-Bush-war Americans back to sleep for a few years.

There is one more factor that may have prevented an election theft in 2008, and might complicate one in 2012: The fear that Obama supporters in general, and black people in particular, might engage in widespread, unruly protests that would draw unwanted attention to the Republican election fraud machine.

As my Truth Jihad Radio guest John Hankey put it, African-Americans, unlike white liberals, are not “a bunch of pussies.” Kill white liberal heroes JFK and RFK, or steal the presidency from white liberals Jimmy Carter, Al Gore, or John Kerry, and the white liberals are too terrified to even whimper. Kill a black hero like Martin Luther King, or even just beat up an ordinary black guy like Rodney King, and African-Americans might just get angry enough to protest in a fashion that cannot be ignored.

If Romney steals the election, and African-Americans pour into the streets, they will be joined, at least in some areas, by angry whites, hispanics, and others.

After Rodney King was brutally beaten on-camera by police, I participated in the huge protests that shut down San Francisco’s Financial District. And I wasn’t the only white guy out there. All kinds of people — white, black, latino, male, female — took to the streets to make the owners of the Financial District take a multi-million-dollar hit, driving home the message that we weren’t going to stand for this kind of racist outrage.

If the Republicans steal another presidential election, this time from the first African-American president, and award it to a career criminal responsible for flooding America’s black neighborhoods with crack cocaine — an empty-suit android who perfectly embodies every negative stereotype about rich white guys, and then some — America might experience a wave of protests that would make the aftermaths of the Martin Luther King assassination, and the Rodney King beating, look like a picnic in the park. Source

Electronic voting systems for electorates have been in use since the 1960s when punched card systems debuted. Their first widespread use was in the USA where 7 counties switched to this method for the 1964 presidential election.

Here is a bit of history and a bit about the Voting machines and their problems. There are a few different types also covered.

Remember any machine can be tampered with.

Shouldn’t all Candidates be at All the debates?

There are more then two parties to vote for in the US. I guess this is just another way to suppress voters. This is what I call hiding the Other Presidential choices, from the people of the US.

Just another form of manipulation, against the people.

Police arrest US presidential candidate Jill Stein at debate site

Oct. 17, 2012

Police arrested Green Party Presidential candidate Jill Stein and her running mate, Cheri Honkala, after they tried to enter the site of tonight’s presidential debate at Hofstra University.

The two were protesting against the exclusion of all but the two major political parties from taking part in the debate.

The presidential candidate and her vice-presidential nominee were arrested by local police when they tried to enter the grounds of Hofstra University, in Hempstead, New York, Stein’s campaign website says. The women were later released from police custody.

A video posted on YouTube shows police officers ushering Stein and Honkala away after they apparently tried to stage a sit-in.

The arrest comes after an announcement by the Green Party that the candidates will take “Occupy the Commission on Presidential Debates” action on the night of the debate.

“Stein and Honkala will walk from Nassau Veterans Memorial Coliseum at 2 PM to the debate perimeter at Hofstra, where they will then attempt to walk through security checkpoints and reach the debate hall,” read the release.

“This is a great day for democracy,” Stein told The Philadelphia Weekly by phone as she headed to the debate site. “It’s a great day for the politics of courage.”

The candidates claim that the Commission on Presidential Debates is an unfair entity formed by Democratic and Republican leaders designed to exclude any opposition.

Jill Stein is the Green Party’s nominee for President of the United States in the 2012 election. A Harvard-educated physician, she also stood for election for Governor of Massachusetts in both 2002 and 2010. A staple of her campaign is the “Green New Deal,” a plan to recharge the US by giving “every American willing and able to work” a job on renewable energy projects in the country. She is backed by American leftist icon Noam Chomsky and acclaimed journalist and harsh critic of unregulated capitalism Chris Hedges. Source

All Presidential Candidates should be present for all debates, so the American people know they have other choices.

Not allowing them to be present, is not Democracy in action. All Candidates should be given a voice at all debates. No exclusions.

The American people should be angry, with this type of exclusion.

When other Candidates, are not allowed to speak this hurts all Americans. It also shows the manipulation during election debates.

The Mail on Sunday today reveals shocking new evidence of the full horrific impact of US drone attacks in Pakistan.

A damning dossier assembled from exhaustive research into the strikes’ targets sets out in heartbreaking detail the deaths of teachers, students and Pakistani policemen. It also describes how bereaved relatives are forced to gather their loved ones’ dismembered body parts in the aftermath of strikes.

The dossier has been assembled by human rights lawyer Shahzad Akbar, who works for Pakistan’s Foundation for Fundamental Rights and the British human rights charity Reprieve.

Filed in two separate court cases, it is set to trigger a formal murder investigation by police into the roles of two US officials said to have ordered the strikes. They are Jonathan Banks, former head of the Central Intelligence Agency’s Islamabad station, and John A. Rizzo, the CIA’s former chief lawyer. Mr Akbar and his staff have already gathered further testimony which has yet to be filed.

How the attacks unfolded…

‘We have statements from a further 82 victims’ families relating to more than 30 drone strikes,’ he said. ‘This is their only hope of justice.’

In the first case, which has already been heard by a court in Islamabad, judgment is expected imminently. If the judge grants Mr Akbar’s petition, an international arrest warrant will be issued via Interpol against the two Americans.

The second case is being heard in the city of Peshawar. In it, Mr Akbar and the families of drone victims who are civilians are seeking a ruling that further strikes in Pakistani airspace should be viewed as ‘acts of war’.

They argue that means the Pakistan Air Force should try to shoot down the drones and that the government should sever diplomatic relations with the US and launch murder inquiries against those responsible.

According to a report last month by academics at Stanford and New York universities, between 2,562 and 3,325 people have been killed since the strikes in Pakistan began in 2004.

The report said of those, up to 881 were civilians, including 176 children. Only 41 people who had died had been confirmed as ‘high-value’ terrorist targets.

Getting at the truth is difficult because the tribal regions along the frontier are closed to journalists. US security officials continue to claim that almost all those killed are militants who use bases in Pakistan to launch attacks on Western forces across the border in Afghanistan.

In his only acknowledgement that the US has ever launched such attacks at all, President Barack Obama said in January: ‘This is a targeted, focused effort at people who are on a list of active terrorists, who are trying to go in and harm Americans.’

But behind the dry legal papers seen by The Mail on Sunday lies the most detailed investigation into individual strikes that has yet been carried out. It suggests that the US President was mistaken.

Missile attacks in in Pakistan have had devastating affects, the dossier revealed

The plaintiff in the Islamabad case is Karim Khan, 45, a journalist and translator with two masters’ degrees, whose family comes from the village of Machi Khel in the tribal region of North Waziristan.

His eldest son, Zahinullah, 18, and his brother, Asif Iqbal, 35, were killed by a Hellfire missile fired from a Predator drone that struck the family’s guest dining room at about 9.30pm on New Year’s Eve, 2009.

Asif had changed his surname because he loved to recite Iqbal, Pakistan’s national poet, and Mr Khan said: ‘We are an educated family. My uncle is a hospital doctor in Islamabad, and we all work in professions such as teaching.

‘We have never had anything to do with militants or terrorists, and for that reason I always assumed we would be safe.’

Mr Khan said: ‘Zahinullah, who had been studying in Islamabad, had returned to the village to work his way through college, taking a part-time job as a school caretaker.

‘He was a quiet boy and studious – always in the top group of his class.’ Zahinullah also liked football, cricket and hunting partridges.

Asif, he added, was an English teacher and had spent several years taking further courses to improve his qualifications while already in work.

Mr Khan said: ‘He was my kid brother. We used to have a laugh, tell jokes.’ His first child was less than a year old when Asif was killed.

Included in the legal dossier are documents that corroborate Asif and Zahinulla’s educational and employment records, as well as their death certificates. Killed alongside them was Khaliq Dad, a stonemason who was staying with the family while he worked on a local mosque.

Mr Khan, who had been working for a TV station in Islamabad, said he was given the news of their deaths in a 2am phone call from a cousin.

Drones have caused untold damage, and the dossier reveals just how devastating they have been for families

‘I called a friend who had a car and we started driving through the night to get back to the village,’ he said. ‘It was a terrible journey. I was shocked, grieving, angry, like anyone who had lost their loved ones.’

He got home soon after dawn and describes his return ‘like entering a village of the dead – it was so quiet. There was a crowd gathered outside the compound but nowhere for them to sit because the guest rooms had been destroyed’.

Zahinullah, Mr Khan discovered, had been killed instantly, but despite his horrific injuries, Asif had survived long enough to be taken to a nearby hospital. However, he died during the night.

‘We always bury people quickly in our culture. The funeral was at three o’clock that afternoon, and more than 1,000 people came,’ Mr Khan said. ‘Zahinullah had a wound on the side of his face and his body was crushed and charred. I am told the people who push the buttons to fire the missiles call these strikes “bug-splats”.

‘It is beyond my imagination how they can lack all mercy and compassion, and carry on doing this for years. They are not human beings.’

Mr Khan found Mr Akbar through a friend who had attended lectures he gave at an Islamabad university. In 2010, he filed a criminal complaint – known as a first information report – to police naming Mr Banks. However, they took no action, therefore triggering the lawsuit – a judicial review of that failure to act.

If the judge finds in favour of Mr Khan, his decision cannot be appealed, thus making the full criminal inquiry and Interpol warrants inevitable.

According to the legal claim, someone from the Pakistan CIA network led by Mr Banks – who left Pakistan in 2010 – targeted the Khan family and guided the Hellfire missile by throwing a GPS homing device into their compound.

A senior CIA officer said: ‘We do not discuss active operations or allegations against specific individuals.’

Mr Rizzo is named because of an interview he gave to a US reporter after he retired as CIA General Counsel last year. In it, he boasted that he had personally authorised every drone strike in which America’s enemies were ‘hunted down and blown to bits’.

He added: ‘It’s basically a hit-list . . . The Predator is the weapon of choice, but it could also be someone putting a bullet in your head.’

Last night a senior Pakistani security official, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said that Pakistan’s own intelligence agency, the ISI, has always been excluded by the CIA from choosing drone targets.

‘They insist on using their own networks, paying their own informants. Dollars can be very persuasive,’ said the official.

He claimed the intelligence behind drone strikes was often seriously flawed. As a result, ‘they are causing the loss of innocent lives’.

But even this, he added, was not as objectionable as the so-called ‘signature strikes’ – when a drone operator, sitting at a computer screen thousands of miles away in Nevada, selects a target because he thinks the drone camera has spotted something suspicious.

He said: ‘It could be a vehicle containing armed men heading towards the border, and the operator thinks, “Let’s get them before they get there,” without any idea of who they are.

‘It could also just be people sitting together. In the frontier region, every male is armed but it doesn’t mean they are militants.’

One such signature strike killed more than 40 people in Datta Khel in North Waziristan on March 17 last year. The victims, Mr Akbar’s dossier makes clear, had gathered for a jirga – a tribal meeting – in order to discuss a dispute between two clans over the division of royalties from a chromite mine.

Some of the most horrifying testimony comes from Khalil Khan, the son of Malik Haji Babat, a tribal leader and police officer. ‘My father was not a terrorist. He was not an enemy of the United States,’ Khalil’s legal statement says. ‘He was a hard-working and upstanding citizen, the type of person others looked up to and aspired to be like.’

Khalil, 32, last saw his father three hours before his death, when he left for a business meeting in a nearby town. Informed his father had been killed, Khalil hurried to the scene.

‘What I saw when I got off the bus at Datta Khel was horrible,’ he said. ‘I immediately saw flames and women and children were saying there had been a drone strike. The fires spread after the strike.

‘I went to the location where the jirga had been held. The situation was really very bad. There were still people lying around injured.

‘The tribal elders who had been killed could not be identified because there were body parts strewn about. The smell was awful. I just collected the pieces that I believed belonged to my father and placed them in a small coffin.’

Khalil said that as a police officer, his father had earned a good salary, on which he supported his family. Khalil has considered returning to the Gulf, where he worked for 14 years, but ‘because of the frequency of drones I am concerned to leave my family’.

He added that schools in the area were empty because ‘parents are afraid their children will be hit by a missile’.

In another statement – one of 13 taken by Mr Akbar concerning the Datta Khel strike – driver Ahmed Jan, 52, describes the moment the missile hit: ‘We were in the middle of our discussion and I was thrown about 24ft from where I was sitting. I was knocked unconscious. When I awoke, I saw many individuals who were injured or dead.

‘I have lost the use of one of my feet and have a rod inserted because of the injuries. It is so painful for me to walk. There are scars on my face because I had to have an operation on my nose when it would not stop bleeding.’

Mr Jan says he has spent £3,600 on medical treatment but ‘I have never been offered compensation of any kind . . . I do not know why this jirga was targeted. I am a malik [elder] of my tribe and therefore a government servant. We were not doing anything wrong or illegal.’

Another survivor was Mohammed Noor, 27, a stonemason, who attended the jirga with his uncle and his cousin, both of whom were killed. ‘The parts of their bodies had to be collected first. These parts were all we had of them,’ he said.

Mr Akbar said that fighting back through the courts was the only way ‘to solve the larger problem’ of the ongoing terrorist conflict.

‘It is the only way to break the cycle of violence,’ he said. ‘If we want to change the people of Waziristan, we first have to show them that we respect the rule of law.’

A senior CIA officer said: ‘We do not discuss active operations or allegations against specific individuals.’ A White House source last night declined to comment. Source

Most of the links in the story below lead to a story. You will have to mouse over them and if an ad doesn’t pop up it is a legitimate link.
Unfortunately those ad links, are all over the web and are rather annoying.

Predator Drone Strikes: 50 Civilians Are Killed For Every 1 Terrorist, and the CIA Only Wants to Up Drone Warfare

By Robert Taylor

While the 2012 presidential election racket focuses on gaffes, Romney’s binders, and Big Bird, the CIA and the Pentagon are currently busy finding ways to increase their military power and influence around the globe. According to the Washington Post, CIA Director David Petraeus wants an increased drone fleet to “bolster the agency’s ability to sustain its campaigns of lethal strikes in Pakistan and Yemen and enable it, if directed, to shift aircraft to emerging Al-Qaeda threats in North Africa or other trouble spots.”

And with the final presidential debate on Monday focusing on foreign policy, the issue of drone strikes could not be more prescient. President Obama and former Governor Romney both carefully tiptoed around discussing anything of real substance concerning domestic issues and the economy, and will both look to outhawk each other next week concerning the use of unmanned armed drones overseas — if it is even discussed at all.

It’s easy to see why they might want to avoid the subject. The use of drone strikes have increased exponentially under the Obama administration, becoming a signature aspect of his incredibly aggressive and reckless foreign policy. And while the president and his advisers defend both their supposed legality and precision while simultaneously bragging when convenient and denying when pressured that the drone program even exists, a closer look at the use of Predator drones tells a very different story.

Despite claims from the administration that drone strikes have killed very few civilians, multiple independent reports confirm that Obama is severely downplaying the wreckage that these drone strikes inflict. It is ultimately impossible to get exact numbers, but a new study from Columbia Law School’s Human Rights Institute finds that the number of Pakistani civilians killed in drone strikes are “significantly and consistently underestimated” by tracking organizations which are trying to take the place of government estimates on casualties.

There are estimates as high as 98% of drone strike casualties being civilians (50 for every one “suspected terrorist”). The Bureau of Investigative Journalism issued a report detailing how the CIA is deliberately targeting those who show up after the sight of an attack, rescuers, and mourners at funerals as a part of a “double-tap” strategy eerily reminiscient of methods used by terrorist groups like Hamas.

These numbers and reports alone should cast much doubt on the effectiveness at protecting the U.S. and combating terrorism that the Obama admnistration uses as justification for drone strikes. If a drone kills an actual terrorist but leaves multiple, sometimes dozens, of innocent civilians vaporized as well, this creates a brand new set of enemies and blowback. According to Jeremy Scahill’s reporting at The Nation, U.S. drone strikes in Yemen are the primary source for Al-Qaeda’s presence in the Arabian Peninsula. Obama’s “signature strikes” — where targets are hit for displaying “suspicious behavior” and which Petraeus also wants to expand — are backfiring and can only boomerang back to us.

While the CIA claims that the drone program operates “under a framework of legal and close government oversight,” multiple legal experts are challenging the legality of the drone program under both American and international law. But much like how the Obama administration is blocking any challenges to the provisions in the NDAA that essentially nullify habeus corpus and Posse Comitatus, any lawsuit or inquiry into the drone program has been met with staunch opposition — especially concerning the targeted assassinations by drones of Anwar Al-Awlaki and his 16-year old son, both U.S. citizens.

The Obama-CIA drone program is the perfect example of government secrecy, lawlessness, and the inevitable next step in the U.S. government’s long tradition of claiming the right to intervene military anywhere and everywhere it pleases. Government programs, whether they be welfare transfer payments or weapons contracts, like cancer, grow for growth’s sake.

Many Americans may display indifference to the use of drones and the CIA’s desire to expand the program. After all, these strikes are done thousands of miles away, and our noble public servants would never mislead us or fearmonger about a supposed foreign threat. Besides, it is far better to have CIA agents in Virginia or Nevada flying weaponized robots by remote control than to send in thousands of Marines, right?

The problem with this, of course, is twofold. First, the basic justification for the use of drones is the threat of terrorism. But terrorism is simply a predictable consequence of an interventionist foreign policy, the propping up of puppet dictators, and the embrace of empire that began after World War II (at least). The use of drones simply compounds this problem, creating more potential terrorists for every one that is killed.

Secondly, foreign and domestic policy are incredibly intertwined, and empires always eventually turn inward. During the occupation of the Philippines, the U.S. government experimented with drug prohibition and torture, programs that eventually became standard domestically. Police are now increasingly resembling, in both attire, attitude, and tactics, their overseas counterparts in Baghdad and Kandahar. Given that in just a few years, drones are set to police American skies, how long will they remained unarmed?

This is why the the drone program, and the CIA’s desire to expand it, are so troubling. More than anything, the issue of whether the President, in a supposedly free society and a constitutional republic, should have this type of power at his fingertips should be front and center.

But since the only critique of Obama’s foreign policy that Romney offers is that it isn’t aggressive enough, the American people will sadly once again be deprived of a debate on the most substantive issues facing the future of what’s left of our republic. Source

Drone attacks kill innocent people. If the US did this in Canada, France, Britain or any other NATO country do you think it would be condemned or condoned?

There is no excuse to do this in Pakistan. Pakistan is not at war with the US. Just like Canada, France or the UK are not at war against the US.

This type of arrogant behavior is not acceptable on any level.

Pakistan is not the only country, who have had many civilians killed by US drones.

Killing innocent people, is murder no matter what the circumstances.

Drone killings are illegal.

Remote-Control Killers

Five Reasons Drone Assassinations are Illegal

May 15, 2012

By BILL QUIGLEY

Bill Quigley is a human rights lawyer who teaches at Loyola University New Orleans and works with the Center for Constitutional Rights.

US civilian and military employees regularly target and fire lethal unmanned drone guided missiles at people across the world. Thousands of people have been assassinated. Hundreds of those killed were civilians. Some of those killed were rescuers and mourners.

These killings would be criminal acts if they occurred inside the US. Does it make legal sense that these killings would be legal outside the US?

Some Facts About Drone Assassinations

The US has used drones to kill thousands of people in Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia. But the government routinely refuses to provide any official information on local reports of civilian deaths or the identities of most of those killed.

In Pakistan alone, the New America Foundation reports US forces have launched 297 drone strikes killing at least 1800 people, three to four hundred of whom were not even combatants. Other investigative journalists report four to eight hundred civilians killed by US drone strikes in Pakistan.

Very few of these drone strikes kill high level leaders of terror groups. A recent article in FOREIGN AFFAIRS estimated “only one out of every seven drone attacks in Pakistan kills a militant leader. The majority of those killed in such strikes are not important insurgent commanders but rather low level fighters, together with a small number of civilians.”

An investigation by the Wall Street Journal in November 2011 revealed that most of the time the US did not even know the identities of the people being killed by drones in Pakistan. The WSJ reported there are two types of drone strikes. Personality strikes target known terrorist leaders. Signature strikes target groups of men believed to be militants but are people whose identities are not known. Most of the drone strikes are signature strikes.

In Yemen, there have been at least 34 drone assassination attacks so far in 2012 alone, according to the London based Bureau of Investigative Journalism. Using drones against people in Yemen, who are thought to be militants but whose names are not even known, was authorized by the Obama administration in April 2012, according to the Washington Post. Somalia has been the site of ten drone attacks with a growing number in recent months.

Civilian deaths in drone strikes are regularly reported but more chilling is the practice of firing a second set of drone strikes at the scene once people have come to find out what happened or to give aid. Glen Greenwald of Salon, a leading critic of the increasing use of drones, recently pointed out that drones routinely kill civilians who are in the vicinity of people thought to be “militants” and are thus “incidental” killings. But also the US also frequently fires drones again at people who show up at the scene of an attack, thus deliberately targeting rescuers and mourners.

Here are five reasons why these drone assassinations are illegal.

One. Assassination by the US government has been illegal since 1976

Drone killings are acts of premeditated murder. Premeditated murder is a crime in all fifty states and under federal criminal law. These murders are also the textbook definition of assassination, which is murder by sudden or secret attack for political reasons.

In 1976 U.S. President Gerald Ford issued Executive Order 11905, Section 5(g), which states “No employee of the United States Government shall engage in, or conspire to engage in, political assassination.” President Reagan followed up to make the ban clearer in Executive Order 12333. Section 2.11 of that Order states “No person employed by or acting on behalf of the United States Government shall engage in, or conspire to engage in, assassination.” Section 2.12 further says “Indirect participation. No agency of the Intelligence Community shall participate in or request any person to undertake activities forbidden by this Order.” This ban on assassination still stands.

The reason for the ban on assassinations was that the CIA was involved in attempts to assassinate national leaders opposed by the US. Among others, US forces sought to kill Fidel Castro of Cuba, Patrice Lumumba of the Congo, Rafael Trujillo of the Dominican Republic, and Ngo Dinh Diem of South Vietnam.

Two. United Nations report directly questions the legality of US drone killings

The UN directly questioned the legality of US drone killings in a May 2010 report by NYU law professor Philip Alston. Alston, the UN special rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary, or arbitrary executions, said drone killings may be lawful in the context of authorized armed conflict (eg Afghanistan where the US sought and received international approval to invade and wage war on another country). However, the use of drones “far from the battle zone” is highly questionable legally. “Outside the context of armed conflict, the use of drones for targeted killing is almost never likely to be legal.” Can drone killings be justified as anticipatory self-defense? “Applying such a scenario to targeted killings threatens to eviscerate the human rights law prohibition against arbitrary deprivation of life.” Likewise, countries which engage in such killings must provide transparency and accountability, which no country has done. “The refusal by States who conduct targeted killings to provide transparency about their policies violates the international law framework that limits the unlawful use of lethal force against individuals.”

Three. International law experts condemn US drone killings

Richard Falk, professor emeritus of international affairs and politics at Princeton University thinks the widespread killing of civilians in drone strikes may well constitute war crimes. “There are two fundamental concerns. One is embarking on this sort of automated warfare in ways that further dehumanize the process of armed conflict in ways that I think have disturbing implications for the future,” Falk said. “Related to that are the concerns I’ve had recently with my preoccupation with the occupation of Gaza of a one-sided warfare where the high-tech side decides how to inflict pain and suffering on the other side that is, essentially, helpless.”

Human rights groups in Pakistan challenge the legality of US drone strikes there and assert that Pakistan can prosecute military and civilians involved for murder.

While stopping short of direct condemnation, international law expert Notre Dame Professor Mary Ellen O’Connell seriously questions the legality of drone attacks in Pakistan. In powerful testimony before Congress and in an article in America magazine she points out that under the charter of the United Nations, international law authorizes nations to kill people in other countries only in self-defense to an armed attack, if authorized by the UN, or is assisting another country in their lawful use of force. Outside of war, she writes, the full body of human rights applies, including the prohibition on killing without warning. Because the US is not at war with Pakistan, using the justification of war to authorize the killings is “to violate fundamental human rights principles.”

Four. Military law of war does not authorize widespread drone killing of civilians

According to the current US Military Law of War Deskbook, the law of war allows killing only when consistent with four key principles: military necessity, distinction, proportionality, and humanity. These principles preclude both direct targeting of civilians and medical personnel but also set out how much “incidental” loss of civilian life is allowed. Some argue precision-guided weapons like drones can be used only when there is no probable cause of civilian deaths. But the US military disputes that burden and instead directs “all practicable precautions” be taken to weigh the anticipated loss of civilian life against the advantages expected to be gained by the strike.

Even using the more lenient standard, there is little legal justification of deliberately allowing the killing of civilians who are “incidental” to the killings of people whose identities are unknown.

Five. Retired high-ranking military and CIA veterans challenge the legality and efficacy of drone killings

Retired US Army Colonel Ann Wright squarely denies the legality of drone warfare, telling Democracy Now: “These drones, you might as well just call them assassination machines. That is what these drones are used for: targeted assassination, extrajudicial ultimate death for people who have not been convicted of anything.”

Drone strikes are also counterproductive. Robert Grenier, recently retired Director of the CIA Counter-Terrorism Center, wrote, “One wonders how many Yemenis may be moved in the future to violent extremism in reaction to carelessly targeted missile strikes, and how many Yemeni militants with strictly local agendas will become dedicated enemies of the West in response to US military actions against them.”

Recent polls of the Pakistan people show high levels of anger in Pakistan at US military attacks there. This anger in turn leads to high support for suicide attacks against US military targets.

US Defense of Drone Assassinations

US officials claim these drone killings are not assassinations because the US has the legal right to kill anyone considered a terrorist, anywhere, if they can argue it is in self-defense. Attorney General Holder and White House counterterrorism advisor John Brennan recently defended the legality of drone strikes and argued they are not assassinations because the killings are in response to the 9/11 attacks and are carried out in self-defense even when not in Afghanistan or Iraq. This argument is based on the highly criticized claim of anticipatory self-defense which justifies killings in a global war on terror when traditional self-defense would clearly not. The government refuses to provide copies of the legal opinions relied upon by the government.

Growing Resistance to Drone Assassinations

In signs of hope, people in the US are resisting the increasing use of drones.

CODEPINK, the Center for Constitutional Rights and the London-based human rights group Reprieve co-sponsored an International Drone Summit in Washington DC to challenge drone assassinations. Investigative journalist Jeremy Scahill noted that Congress only managed to scrape up six votes to oppose the assassination of US citizens abroad. “What is happening to this country? We have become a nation of assassins. We have become a nation that is somehow silent in the face of the idea that assassination should be one of the centerpieces of US policy.”

The American Society of International Law issued a report “Targeting Operations with Drone Technology: Humanitarian Law Implications” in March 2011. Concerned that drones may be the future of warfare, scholars examined three questions in the US use of drone technology: the scope of armed conflict (what is the battlefield upon which deadly force of drone killing is authorized); who may be targeted; and the legal implications of who conducts the targeting (since it is often not military but clandestine CIA agents who decide who dies). Concluding that the US may soon find itself “on the other end of the drone” as this technology expands, they criticize official US silence on these key legal questions.

Others are taking direct action. Select examples include: fourteen people arrested in April 2009 outside Creech Air Force base in Nevada in connection with a protest against drones by the Nevada Desert Experience; in January 2010 people protested drones outside the CIA headquarters in Langley Virginia; in April 2011, thirty-seven were arrested at Hancock Air Force base in upstate New York as part of a four hundred person protest against the use of drones; in October 2011, as part of the International Week of Protest to Stop the Militarization of Space there were protests outside of Raytheon Missile Systems plant in Tucson; in April 2012, twenty-eight people were pre-emptively arrested on their way to protest drones at Hancock Air Force Base.

There is a brilliant new book, DRONE WARFARE authored by global activist Medea Benjamin which documents the nuts and bolts of the drone industry and the money involved in their production and operation. She collects many global media reports of innocent civilian deaths, investigations into these deaths, and gives voice to international opposition groups like her own CODEPINK, Voices for Creative Nonviolence, Fellowship of Reconciliation, War Resisters International, Human Rights Watch, the Catholic Worker movement, Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, and others working against the drones.

As National Public Radio and The New Republic jointly editorialized, there is good reason to doubt the veracity of US claims that drone killings are even effective. Drone use has escalated and expanded the US global war on terror and thus should be subject to higher levels of scrutiny than it is now. As the use of drones escalates so too does the risk of killing innocents which produces “legitimate anti-American anger that terrorist recruiters can exploit….Such a steady escalation of the drone war, and the inevitable increase in civilian casualties that will accompany it, could easily tip the delicate balance that assures we kill more terrorists than we produce.”

There is incredible danger in allowing US military and civilians to murder people anywhere in the world with no public or Congressional or judicial oversight. This authorizes the President and the executive branch, according to the ACLU and the Center for Constitutional Rights, to be prosecutor, judge, jury and executioner.

The use of drones to assassinate people violates US and international law in multiple ways. US military and civilian employees, who plan, target and execute people in Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia are violating the law and, ultimately, risk prosecution. As the technology for drone attacks spreads, protests by the US that drone attacks by others are illegal will sound quite hollow. Continuation of flagrantly illegal drone attacks by the US also risks justifying the exact same actions, taken by others, against us. Source
If the US did this in your country or you, how would you feel about it?

Imagine for a few moments, that it happened to your family or friends.

Imagine it happened to your next door neighbors or to you, yourself.

Well you could be next. Something to think about for a while.

Something else to think about. Those who tell the truth, can end up in prison.

President Obama Keeps a Yemeni Journalist in Jail

As the battle continues against NDAA the indefinite detention a journalist is being detained for exposing US lies about the murder of civilians in a drone strike.

Why would President Obama want a Yemeni journalist, known for his reports of human rights abuses, to remain in Yemeni prison?

That’s the question Abdul Ilah Haydar Shayi’ wants to know after two years in detention following his reports – later proven correct — that the United States was involved in a deadly attack on an alleged al-Qa’ida training camp which took place on Dec. 17, 2009. For the entire story go to theSource

The number of Americans sickened by a deadly meningitis outbreak has now reached 119 cases, including 11 deaths.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention updated the count on Tuesday.

New Jersey is the 10th state to report at least one illness. The other states involved in the outbreak are Tennessee, Michigan, Virginia, Indiana, Florida, Maryland, Minnesota, North Carolina and Ohio.

Officials have tied the outbreak of rare fungal meningitis to steroid shots for back pain. The steroid was made by a specialty pharmacy in Massachusetts. At least one contaminated vial was found at the company.

The company recalled the steroid that was sent to clinics in 23 states, and later recalled everything it makes. Source

External Links

U.S. health officials say the death toll in a rare fungal meningitis outbreak across several states has risen to seven as the outbreak has spread to more than 60 people.

In updated figures posted to its website Saturday, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says the outbreak has is now in nine states. The latest cases have been confirmed in Minnesota and Ohio. And, the number deaths has gone up from five to seven.

Authorities took the step to help identify everyone who may have gotten sick — or may still get sick — in the outbreak.

“All patients who may have received these medications need to be tracked down immediately,” said Dr. Benjamin Park of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

“It is possible that if patients with infection are identified soon and put on appropriate antifungal therapy, lives may be saved,” he said in a statement.

The CDC said the number of cases of the rare fungal meningitis reached 64 cases as of Saturday afternoon. According to the CDC’s website, the number of infections and deaths according to state is as follows:

Florida: 4 cases

Indiana: 5 cases

Maryland: 3 cases, including 1 death

Michigan: 8 cases, including 2 deaths

Minnesota: 1 case

North Carolina: 2 cases

Ohio: 1 case

Tennessee: 29 cases, including 3 deaths

Virginia: 11 cases, including 1 death

Investigators have focused on a fungal meningitis made by a specialty pharmacy in Massachusetts. All the outbreak patients had gotten shots of the steroid for back pain, a common treatment, and inspectors found at least one sealed vial contaminated with fungus.

On Friday, officials said they have found fungal infections in nine sick patients. They weren’t able to identify what types of fungus in every one of those patients, but did distinguish at least two types — Aspergillus and Exserohilum.

The first known case in the meningitis outbreak was diagnosed about two weeks ago in Tennessee, and the steroid was recalled last week by the pharmacy, New England Compounding Center in Framingham, Mass.

Steriod used in 75 facilities in 23 states

About 17,700 single-dose vials of the steroid were covered in the recall. On Friday, the government released the names of about 75 facilities in 23 states that got recalled doses between July and September.

It’s not clear how many were sent to clinics, how many were used, or even whether everyone who got one will get sick. Once infected, it can take as long as a month for symptoms to appear.

Meningitis is an inflammation of the lining of the brain and spinal cord. Symptoms include severe headache, nausea, dizziness and fever.

At the prompting of government officials, clinics are notifying all the patients who got shots from the recalled lots.

“There’s a massive effort to contact all the patients,” said Marsha Thiel, the chief executive officer of MAPS, a company that owns surgery center clinics in Minnesota.

She added, “If there’s any question at all, they’re being directed to go to their physician.”

As a precaution, the Food and Drug Administration urged doctors not to use any of the company’s products, and released a list Friday that included other steroids, anesthetics and a blood pressure medicine. The company, which is now closed, said in a statement Thursday that despite the FDA warning, “there is no indication of any potential issues with other products.”

The steroid is known as preservative-free methylprednisolone acetate, which the compounding pharmacy creates by combining a powder with a liquid.

There are FDA-approved versions of the drug, sold by the brand name Depo-Medrol, in good supply. So patients who need the medicine should not encounter a shortage, the FDA said Friday.

Most of the anxiety now involves patients who got steroid shots for back pain and are worried about becoming seriously ill.

“Our phone is ringing off the hook this morning. Patients are calling. Of course, they’re concerned,” said Paulette Fry, practice manager at Wellspring Pain Solutions in Columbus, Ind., about 40 miles south of Indianapolis. She said the clinic was sending out letters to about 300 patients who received spinal injections with the drug.

Meningitis is an inflammation of the lining of the brain and spinal cord. Symptoms include severe headache, nausea, dizziness and fever.

Fungal meningitis is not contagious like the more common forms. The types of fungus linked to the outbreak are all around, but very rarely causes illness. Fungal meningitis is treated with high-dose antifungal medications, usually given intravenously in a hospital. Source

A major battle outside the Somalian central city of Baidoa on March 10 showed that the imperialist-backed war against Al-Shabaab is far from over. Reports in recent weeks in the corporate media had made it appear that the Islamic resistance forces were in retreat and suffering massive casualties at the hands of the multinational invasion forces currently operating inside Somalia.

Developments in the Horn of Africa must be viewed within the context of the expansion of the United States Africa Command — known as AFRICOM — and NATO operations on the continent. The reserves of oil and strategic minerals that are increasingly identified in Africa are at the root of these military operations in Somalia.

There is intense fighting in Mogadishu, Somalia’s capital, in Kismayo in the south, and in Baidoa in the central region where Western-engineered militaries claim to have largely weakened the Al-Shabaab movement. Nonetheless, reports say the March 12 Baidoa clashes killed 70 Ethiopian troops and wounded many more.

In Mogadishu on March 14, an attack on the presidential palace killed several people. Al-Shabaab soon claimed responsibility for the operation, saying that the bombing attack killed 17 people.

Sheikh Abdiasis Abu Musab of Al-Shabaab said in a statement, “What a victory, inside the so-called presidential palace; more explosions and bombers will follow.” (Reuters, March 14)

The Ethiopian military’s incursion once again into Somalia is key to efforts to defeat Al-Shabaab through overwhelming force. Kenyan Defense Forces, which entered Somalia in October 2011, quickly became stalled due to Al-Shabaab’s determined defense and inclement weather conditions in the region.

Soon enough it was announced that the Kenyan military would be integrated into the project of the African Union Mission to Somalia. AMISOM, which has been operating in Somalia since 2007, was a direct response to Ethiopia’s earlier failure. In late 2006 Washington had encouraged the Ethiopian military to intervene there.

The Ethiopian occupation was met by fierce opposition from the Islamic Courts Union, which at the time was designated by the Bush administration as a threat to U.S. interests in the Horn of Africa.

Ethiopia’s intervention, which lasted from December 2006 to early 2009, prompted large-scale dislocation of the Somali population. Besides all the ground intervention, Washington carried out several bombing operations in Somalia during 2007 under the guise of targeting “al Qaeda terrorist bases” inside this Horn of Africa nation.

Despite the large-scale Ethiopian intervention and the role of U.S. and British air power, Ethiopia’s invasion and occupation were huge failures. Politically, however, the U.S. was able to split the Islamic Courts Union coalition and bring the more moderate elements into the Washington-backed Transitional Federal Government.

However, the more youthful militant wing of the ICU known as Al-Shabaab rejected the agreement to enter the TFG. Al-Shabaab also rejected the demand that AMISOM military forces be allowed to remain in Somalia indefinitely.

AMISOM was initially set up to deploy approximately 8,000 troops from the U.S.-funded regimes in Uganda and Burundi, as well other states. Since late 2011, reinforcements have been dispatched from Djibouti, a neighboring state which harbors a Pentagon and French military base at Camp Lemonier near the Somali border.

Behind the attacks on Eritrea

On March 15, the Ethiopian military launched attacks across its northern border into Eritrea. This rekindled the long conflict over the independence of Eritrea which had been incorporated into Ethiopia between 1952 and 1961.

Following Ethiopia’s massive 1974 revolution, the Dergue headed by Col. Mengistu Haile Mariam turned toward the Soviet Union and Cuba for assistance and declared the new political dispensation socialist oriented.

The revolutionary Ethiopian government closed a U.S. military base and enacted social reforms, including land redistribution. Nonetheless, the war with Eritrea, a former Italian colony and British protectorate, continued.

During the period of the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, several months prior to its break-up, the government led by the Workers Party of Ethiopia was overthrown. At that time Eritrea, under the leadership of the Eritrean People’s Liberation Front, declared its independence from Ethiopia with no apparent opposition from Addis Ababa.

However, by 1998 a protracted military struggle started up once again between Ethiopia and Eritrea, in which a reported 70,000 people were killed between 1998 and 2000. The Organization of African Unity — predecessor to the African Union — brokered an agreement in Algiers that resulted in the cessation of hostilities. No peace treaty has been signed between the two states.

Responding to Ethiopia’s March 15 attack, the Eritrean government said that the military strike is designed to further obscure Addis Ababa’s ongoing occupation of territory around Badme, which is on the border between the two countries. The U.S. and Ethiopia have accused Eritrea of supplying military assistance to Al-Shabaab and other movements in the Afars region that oppose the Ethiopian regime. Eritrea denies these claims.

Imperialist aims in the Horn of Africa

U.S. imperialism and its allies aim to isolate and liquidate all political forces within the Horn of Africa that operate independently of Washington’s direction. This was the rationale for the U.S. urging Ethiopian intervention into Somalia between 2006 and 2009 and the latest incursions around Baidoa.

In all likelihood, the recent Ethiopian strikes against Eritrea are allowed by the imperialists because Eritrea has resisted cooperation with imperialism’s regional efforts geared toward subduing Somalia.

Somalia has recently been discovered to possess a potential source of oil for the transnational petroleum firms. Drilling has already begun in the northern breakaway enclave of Puntland.

U.S. drones are in full operation in Somalia, and have led to the deaths of hundreds of civilians inside the country over the last several months. At the same time, flotillas of warships from Washington and the European Union are patrolling waterways off the coast in the Gulf of Aden, which are some of the most lucrative shipping lanes in the world.

Fresh from the overthrow of Col. Moammar Gadhafi’s government in Libya, the U.S. and NATO are seeking greater avenues of penetration into Africa. Consequently, anti-war and anti-imperialists forces in the U.S. must oppose these operations because they are only structured to increase the profit margins of the transnational corporations and the banks.Source

The US is using the Fake Kony 2012 to send in more troops to Africa.

There are a few articles at the link below explaining how it all works.

Always war for oil. The people of the US really need to step up to the plate and stop these wars. How many millions more, must die before the people say NO MORE?

For years, the US government has condemned countries like China and Iran for their clampdown on Internet use. But now, the impact of America’s new censorship laws could be far worse — effectively blocking sites to every Internet user across the globe.

Last year, a similar Internet censorship bill was killed before reaching the US Senate floor, but it’s now back in a different form. Copyright laws already exist and are enforced by courts. But this new law goes much further — granting the government and big corporations enormous powers to force service providers and search engines to block websites based just on allegations of violations — without a trial or being found guilty of any crime!

US free speech advocates have already raised the alarm, and some key Senators are trying to gather enough support to stop this dangerous bill. We have no time to lose. Let’s stand with them to ensure American lawmakers preserve the right to a free and open Internet as an essential way for people around the world to exchange ideas, share communication and work collectively to build the world we want.

Op-Ed: Blacklist Bill allows Feds to remove websites from Internet

The House version of the Internet Blacklist Bill was released October 26, 2011, with no effort to fix problems that existed in the Senate version. A violation of the First Amendment, it is contrary to official positions of internet freedom and censorship.

“Under the Internet Blacklist Bill — S.968, formally called the PROTECT IP Act — the Department of Justice would force search engines, browsers, and service providers to block users’ access to websites that have been accused of copyright infringement — without even giving them a day in court.” (Demand Progress)

The S.968 bill is considered dangerous and short-sighted due to its broad writing that covers a multitude of issues, bringing danger to not only Internet security but is considered a serious threat to free online speech and innovation. The Censorship-galore Department describes it as an attempt to build the Great Firewall of America, requiring service providers to block access to certain websites.

This bill could shut down YouTube, Twitter and many other social websites that bring together the Occupy movements across the nation and world—any user-generated content site where the law can make the sites’ owners legally responsible for the posted content of its users.

Additionally, the bill could shut down music storage lockers and cloud-based products, while its broad-based terminology includes provisions that allow selected websites to be charged with felony charges for streaming unlicensed content—video game play-throughs, coverage of band performances and karaoke videos.

“The bill also threatens to take away Americans’ rights to safe, affordable medications by blocking access to licensed and regulated pharmacies outside of the U.S. that require a prescription.”

As reported to Tech Dirt the CCIA, CEA and NetCoalition prepared a joint letter to members of Congress who had originally sponsored the bill, saying that on behalf of the technology industry they had never been approached about the bill.

This is ironic, as Protect IP is basically driven by the demands of the entertainment industry. Yet the bill will dramatically reduce jobs, job growth and innovation in the country—something promised by the GOP when they were voted into office and something not yet seen.

The House had previously agreed to meet with organizations that represented the tech industry and who would be most affected by Protect IP. However, the House has chosen to rush the bill through this past Wednesday without listening to professional opinions or advice from the tech industry, individuals who feel strongly that the bill is “jobs-destroying,” “innovative-binding,” “and internet-breaking.”

Letter to the GOP House from CCIA, CEA and NetCoalition:

October 24, 2011

Via Facsimile and E-Mail

The Honorable Lamar Smith Chairman Committee on the Judiciary House of Representatives

Washington, DC 20515

The Honorable John Conyers, Jr. Ranking Member Committee on the Judiciary House of Representatives

Washington, DC 20515

The Honorable Bob Goodlatte Chairman Subcommittee on Intellectual Property, Competition, and the Internet Committee on the Judiciary House of Representatives

Washington, DC 20515

The Honorable Mel Watt Ranking Member Subcommittee on Intellectual Property, Competition, and the Internet Committee on the Judiciary House of Representatives

Washington, DC 20515

Dear Chairman Smith and Representatives Conyers, Goodlatte, and Watt:

We want to thank you for convening a meeting on Friday in regard to the legislative proposal to address rogue foreign websites that infringe the rights of U.S. IP owners. We also appreciate the time your staff has devoted to this important and complex issue. We regard this initial meeting as a productive step toward building consensus around a solution, and we urge that the Committee await introducing legislation until the affected stakeholders can comment meaningfully on the specifics of the approach.

One point of consensus that appeared to emerge in Friday’s meeting was that in an area as complex as Internet regulation, the specific text by which the framework is implemented matters greatly. Thus, the stakeholders who stand to be directly affected by the regulatory framework under consideration should be consulted on the text.

For this reason, we urge you to reconvene affected stakeholders and experts when a draft has been prepared, and utilize the input that they may provide before introducing legislation. Our industries remain committed to working with all stakeholders to craft a legislative proposal that addresses this issue without undue collateral damage.

Sincerely, Computer & Communications

Industry Association (CCIA)

Consumer Electronics Association (CEA)

NetCoalition

With the Internet Blacklist Bill literally shoved through the House, those same copyright holders will be able to cut off advertising and payment processing to such sites. Without court review.

Disastrous IP Legislation Is Back – And It’s Worse than Ever

We’ve reported hereoften on efforts to ram through Congress legislation that would authorize massive interference with the Internet, all in the name of a fruitless quest to stamp out all infringement online. Today Representative Lamar Smith upped the ante, introducing legislation, called the Stop Online Piracy Act, or “SOPA,” that would not only sabotage the domain name system but would also threaten to effectively eliminate the DMCA safe harbors that, while imperfect, have spurred much economic growth and online creativity.

As with its Senate-side evil sister, PROTECT-IP, SOPA would require service providers to “disappear” certain websites, endangering Internet security and sending a troubling message to the world: it’s okay to interfere with the Internet, even effectively blacklisting entire domains, as long as you do it in the name of IP enforcement. Of course blacklisting entire domains can mean turning off thousands of underlying websites that may have done nothing wrong. And in what has to be an ironic touch, the very first clause of SOPA states that it shall not be “construed to impose a prior restraint on free speech.” As if that little recitation could prevent the obvious constitutional problem in what the statute actually does.

But it gets worse. Under this bill, service providers (including hosting services) would be under new pressure to monitor and police their users’ activities. Websites that simply don’t do enough to police infringement (and it is not at all clear what would qualify as “enough”) are now under threat, even though the DMCA expressly does not require affirmative policing. It creates new enforcement tools against folks who dare to help users access sites that may have been “blacklisted,” even without any kind of court hearing. The bill also requires that search engines, payment providers (such as credit card companies and PayPal), and advertising services join in the fun in shutting down entire websites. In fact, the bill seems mainly aimed at creating an end-run around the DMCA safe harbors. Instead of complying with the DMCA, a copyright owner may now be able to use these new provisions to effectively shut down a site by cutting off access to its domain name, its search engine hits, its ads, and its other financing even if the safe harbors would apply.

And that’s only the beginning: we haven’t even started on the streaming provisions.

We’ll have more details on the bill in the next several days but suffice it to say, this is the worst piece of IP legislation we’ve seen in the last decade — and that’s saying something. This would be a good time to contact your Congressional representative and tell them to oppose this bill! Source

November 15 2011

As of June 2011 NATO had exacted 26,000 sorties and nearly 10,000 airstrikes. The number of actual Airstrikes is much higher, as the bombing continued up until October 2011.

At least 30,000 people were killed and 50,000 wounded in Libya’s six-month NATO war. The numbers may be higher.

As of today there are at least 7,000 prisoners held by the NTC/Rebels at this point in time probably more.

Libya: detainees and the dead must be respected

October 27 2011

Following the recent fighting, particularly in Sirte, Georges Comninos, who heads the ICRC delegation in Libya, gives an update on the immediate humanitarian priorities and on problems that have recently been the subject of debate, in particular the public display of detainees and the dead.

What will the ICRC’s priorities be in the coming days?

Many people are still being arrested. Obtaining access to people newly detained, in particular those captured following the recent fighting in Sirte and Bani Walid, is a priority. In the framework of a constructive dialogue with the transitional authorities, we have visited 6,000 detainees in Tripoli, Misrata and other cities nearby over the past two months. So we have reason to be optimistic about obtaining access to people recently arrested. That being said, in order to be able to check on the treatment they are receiving and on the conditions in which they are being held, the visits will have to take place without delay.

International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) delegates have returned to Sirte several times over the past few days. The fighting was extremely fierce, as can be seen by the large-scale destruction. The city is almost deserted; only a small number of families are starting to return.

At least 200 corpses have so far been found in Sirte. The staff of the National Commission for the Missing, a doctor from Ibn Sina Hospital and civilian volunteers are currently involved in the retrieval and temporary burial of unidentified bodies. The ICRC provided them with advice in order to facilitate the process of having the deceased identified by members of their families.

In the light of information obtained in Sirte, we are also going to intensify our dialogue with the authorities concerned on the conduct of recent hostilities and on compliance with other rules of international humanitarian law.

In cooperation with Libyan Red Crescent volunteers, we will be pressing ahead in the coming days with the delivery of aid to tens of thousands of people displaced from Sirte and Bani Walid. Unexploded munitions in those cities constitute a danger and a further obstacle to the return of the people who fled. It will therefore also be necessary to raise people’s awareness of the danger posed by these explosive remnants of war.

The public display of detainees and of mortal remains has triggered a great deal of reaction and debate in recent days. What is the ICRC’s view of these issues?

Over the past few days, people with their hands tied have been put on display on vehicles, interrogations of detainees have been filmed by local media, and mortal remains have been exposed to public curiosity…

Our view of these issues is based on the applicable rules of international humanitarian law, for which we endeavour to ensure respect.

In each individual case, the parties concerned must refrain from subjecting persons in their power to treatment incompatible with respect for their honour and dignity – in particular, to humiliating and degrading treatment. They must treat them humanely, without any adverse distinction. International humanitarian law also contains rules concerning respect for the dead, such as the obligation to search for, collect and evacuate the dead without adverse distinction, to prevent the dead from being despoiled or mutilated, and to bury the dead with respect.

These rules concerning respect for persons deprived of their freedom and for mortal remains also apply in connection with their display to the general public via the media.

There have recently been numerous allegations of summary executions in places where fighting has taken place, particularly in Sirte. What do you have to say on this topic?

We will not cease to point out that international humanitarian law prohibits at any time, and in any place whatsoever, violence to the life and person of anyone no longer taking an active part in hostilities. Violations of this prohibition by any party involved in the conflict are grave breaches of international humanitarian law which, once established, must be punished.

On issues like this, the ICRC gives priority to bilateral and confidential dialogue with the parties. Source

Unfortunately the Red Cross have not told us how the prisoners are being treated.

Red Cross Statement on Abuzaid Dorda

Nov 14, 2011

Abuzaid Dorda is a very famous Libyan, Once the Prime Minister, and the permanent representative to the UN. Since being arrested in good health, he now has broken bones and his health is in jeopardy, in the last days there are videos on this channel with his brother and his son.

NTC officials deny the allegation and say Dorda incurred injuries including two broken legs whilst either attempting to escape or commit suicide.

Considering the barbaric behavior of the Rebels, I believe the man was brutalized by the Rebels.

Here are just a few reports from Detainees.

Because the detainees expressed fear of reprisals, including some who said they might face beatings for talking with a Human Rights Watch researcher, Human Rights Watch is withholding their real names.

A dark-skinned Libyan, Abdulatif, said that guards in one Tripoli detention facility used electric shock to force him to confess to crimes he said he had not committed:

The rebels were taking turns. There were too many to count. Every day, there was a new face. They zapped me with an electric stick on my legs and on my arms. They did that twice. They asked me questions when they did this…. They asked me again and hit me. I said “No, I swear I didn’t,” so they started electrocuting me. They wanted me to confess but in the wrong way. They hit me every day. They used falaga [beating on the bottom of the feet] and hit me on my back, all over my body, and slapped my face. They did this three times.

Another dark-skinned Libyan, Juma, showed Human Rights Watch his wounds and talked of his interrogation at a large Tripoli prison:

They used cables and engine belts [to beat me]…. They hit me every day. The first days, they beat me for six to seven hours. I fainted. They beat me until I lost consciousness. They were still beating me, but I couldn’t feel it. They poured a bucket of water on my head twice, so I woke up. When I woke up, they would leave me alone, but then they started beating me again.…They put the electric stick on my side, my thighs, my shoulder, my back. If you fall, they put it on your body, anywhere. They use it right away when you fall. I can’t tell you how many times they did this.

The pronounced scars he showed Human Rights Watch were consistent with his claims. ­

One sub-Saharan African, Mohammed, wept as he showed Human Rights Watch welts on his arms, back, and neck that he said were from beatings by guards at a small detention center. Another African migrant said that guards twice extinguished a cigarette on his arm. “Every day they frighten me,” he told Human Rights Watch. “They say they will slaughter me.”

One Libyan detainee, Ahmed, described daily beatings and mistreatment while he was held at a neighborhood detention center that Human Rights Watch did not visit:

They took an electric cable and started hitting me with it. They didn’t use electricity, but they said that if I didn’t talk, they would…They hit me with a butt of the Kalashnikov (a type of rifle). They kicked me in the face and in the chest. One scratched me with the knife [bayonet] of the Kalashnikov.”

Ahmed showed Human Rights Watch scars on various parts of his body, including from cigarette burns.

There are also children held in those prisons as well, but no one is reporting how many.

I guess the CIA taught them well.Under Libyan law, which obviously doesn’t apply anymore now that the NTC/Rebels have taken over. the police must have a warrant to make an arrest. The police can hold a person for up to 48 hours, and the prosecution has up to six days to file charges, although a judge can extend this period for up to 30 days. Defendants have the right to be informed of the charges against them and to have access to a lawyer from the moment of arrest.

This is what happened to many children in Libya Not for the faint of heart. Warning it is very graphic, but it is the truth. What did these children ever do to anyone? This is the true face of the US/NATO war against Libyans. If this does not make you angry then there is something wrong with you. What does it take to make you say NO MORE WAR? Imagine this is your children.

No one in Libya will thank you for this. This is American Freedom.

Despite the evidence of ‘mission creep’, NATO leaders seem determined to bet against a future Nuremberg-style war crime action against them, and continue to pound the city of Sirte by night, to ‘break the ground’ for their daytime sniper-fodder ‘relief team.’‬

‪During a two day so-called truce in early October the Red Cross tried to enter Sirte to provide humanitarian aid. On the first day they managed to visit a hospital on the southern outskirts, bringing in a few needed supplies, but the hospital came under NTC rebel attack, and they were not able to inspect the whole building let alone get into the city proper and visit other areas.‬

‪On the second day the Red Cross tried to take two large aid trucks into the city. But the rebels began firing and so the Red Cross backed up quickly and abandoned their attempt. Preventing access for aid, another war crime.‬

Forever announcing their ‘final’ assault on Sirte, the NTC rebels have not yet quite managed to achieve it. NATO is now firing missiles from helicopters onto the city. They continue their murderous siege of 100,000 people, maybe more people because many from other towns months ago sought harbor in Sirte, maybe fewer because many have died or fled. Whatever the number, the people of Sirte are defending themselves and their city against NATO’s military might.‬

‪The Human Rights groups and United Nations community are being tested. On whether the international member nations have the moral courage to stand up to the powerful NATO nations, point out the illegality of the war on Libya, and insist that their ambassadors take that message to the UN. Meanwhile Gaddafi is proven right yet again, when he observed years ago that the UN did not provide fair treatment for its smaller and less powerful member nations.

TORONTO CONFERENCE Sept 9, 2011, The Truth about Libya and NATO’s “Humanitarian” Military Road Map – Cynthia McKinney, Mahdi Nazemroaya and Michel Chossudovsky speak at Friends Place in Mahdi Darius Nazemroaya – Independent journalist who just returned from Libya, and Research Associate of the Center for Research on Globalization – GLOBAL RESEARCH

Court to Consider ‘Series of Complaints’ Against NATO, NTC

by Jason Ditz, November 03, 201

NATO’s careful avoidance of any investigations of the many civilians they killed over several months of bombing western Libyan cities may have kept the situation quiet for awhile, but now it looks like the story is coming out without them.

Moreno-Ocampo confirmed that they have received a “series of complaints” from Libyan civilians about NATO as well as the National Transitional Council (NTC), the Benghazi-based rebel movement NATO’s war was supporting.

Moreno-Ocampo also confirmed reports that Saif al-Islam Gadhafi was attempting to negotiate a surrender to the ICC, saying he had received questions from Saif’s associates about the terms of such a surrender. Source

Lets hope they also investigate all the NATO hired mercenaries as well.

Well I can see this being a sham. They will pretend to investigate and they will say US/NATO did nothing wrong as par usual.

There is no real justice. The great pretenders.

the US/NATO have been committing war crimes for years and gotten away with it. So we can expect a pretend investigation and they will get away with mass murders again.

Then there are the Rebels they supported. Nothing like helping the terrorists. Terrorists that will give them access to oil/gold.

Let them in to privatize everything and steal every last penny from the Libyan people, then leave them to starve in poverty, just like they do to the rest of Africa.

If you think Africa has to be as poor as they are you are wrong. The rich countries make sure they stay poor so they can strip their resources. This has been happening for years.

GOING ROGUE: NATO’s War Crimes in Libya

By Susan Lindauer, former US Asset covering Libya at the United Nations

June 7th, 2011

It’s a story CNN won’t report. Late at night there’s a pounding on the door in Misurata. Armed soldiers force young Libyan women out of their beds at gun-point. Hustling the women and teenagers into trucks, the soldiers rush the women to gang bang parties for NATO rebels—or else rape them in front of their husbands or fathers. When NATO rebels finish their rape sport, the soldiers cut the women’s throats.

Rapes are now ongoing acts of war in rebel-held cities, like an organized military strategy, according to refugees. Joanna Moriarty, who’s part of a global fact-finding delegation visiting Tripoli this week, also reports that NATO rebels have gone house to house through Misurata, asking families if they support NATO. If the families say no, they are killed on the spot. If families say they want to stay out of the fighting, NATO rebels take a different approach to scare other families. The doors of “neutral homes” are welded shut, Moriarty says, trapping families inside. In Libyan homes, windows are typically barred. So when the doors to a family compound get welded shut, Libyans are entombed in their own houses, where NATO forces can be sure large families will slowly starve to death.

These are daily occurrences, not isolated events. And Gadhaffi’s soldiers are not responsible. In fact, pro-Gadhaffi and “neutral” families are targeted as the victims of the attacks. Some of the NATO tactics may have occurred in hopes of laying blame on Gadhaffi’s door. However the attacks are back firing.

Flashback to Serbia

The events are eerily reminiscent of Serbia’s conflict in the Balkans with its notorious rape camps— Except today NATO itself is perpetrating these War Crimes—as if they have learned the worst terror tactics from their enemies.

Their actions would be categorized as War Crimes, just like Serb leader, Slobadon Milosevic—except that NATO won’t allow itself to face prosecution. According to NATO, International Law is for the other guy.

NATO is wrong. So long as NATO governments provide the funding, assault rifles, military training, ground advisers, support vehicles and air power, they are fully responsible for the actions of their soldiers in the war zone. Libya’s rebels are not a rag tag fighting force, either. Thanks to NATO’s largesse, financed by U.S. and British taxpayers, they’re fully decked out in military uniforms, parading through the streets with military vehicles for all the people to see.

And they do see. In Washington, Congress likes to pretend that America has not become involved in the day to day actualities of military planning. However refugees have observed U.S, British, French and Israeli soldiers standing by as rebel soldiers attack civilians.

“Rape parties” are the most graphic examples of NATO’s loss of moral control. One weeping father told the fact-finding delegation how a couple of weeks ago NATO rebels targeted seven separate households, kidnapping a virgin daughter from each pro-Gadhaffi family. The rebels were paid for each kidnapped girl, just as they are paid for each Libyan soldier they kill— like mercenary soldiers. They hustled the girls into trucks, and took them to a building where the girls were locked in separate rooms.

NATO soldiers proceeded to drink alcohol, until they got very drunk. Then the leader told them to rape the virgin daughters in gang bang style. When they’d finished raping the girls, the NATO leader told them to cut the breasts off the living girls and bring the breasts to him. They did this while the girls were alive and screaming. All the girls died hideous deaths. Then their severed breasts were taken to a local square and arranged to spell the word “whore.”

The grieving father spoke to a convention of workers, attended by the global fact-finding delegation. He was openly weeping, as all of us should. NATO’s offenses in Libya are as terrible and unforgivable as Syria’s castration and mutilation of the 13 year old boy that shocked the world. Yet so long as NATO’s the guilty party, the western media has looked the other way in distaste.

Some of us are paying attention— We can see that NATO has gone rogue in Libya. And the Libyan people themselves consider it unforgivable. Last week, 2000 Tribal Leaders gathered in Tripoli to draft a Constitution for the country, as demanded by the British government. Notoriously, British warships and U.S. drones pounded the streets of Tripoli with bunker bombs and missiles for days and nights close to where the Tribal Leaders were meeting. From Tripoli, it felt awfully like the British were trying to stop the Libyan people from bringing this Constitution to life.

Tribal Leaders Condemn British Aggression

Here’s what those 2,000 Tribal Leaders had to say about British aggression, in a statement approved unanimously on June 3. Sheikh Ali, head of the Tribal Leaders, delivered it to Joanna Moriarty and other members of the global fact finding mission:

“The Libyan people have the right to govern themselves. Constant attacks from the skies, at all hours of the day have completely disrupted the lives of the families of Libya. There has never been any fighting in Tripoli, yet we are bombed every day. We are civilians and we are being killed by the British and NATO. Civilians are people without guns, yet the British and NATO protect only the armed crusaders from the East by acting as their attack army. We have read the UN resolutions and there is no mention of bombing innocent civilians. There is no mention of assassinating the legitimate authorities in all of Libya.”

“The Libyan People have the right to select their own leaders. We have suffered occupation by foreign countries for thousands of years. Only in the last 41 years have we Libyans enjoyed property ownership. Only in the last 41 years have we seen our country develop. Only in the last 41 years have we seen all of the Libyans enjoy a better life, and know that our children will have a better life then we have had. But now with the British and NATO bombings of our country, we see the destruction of our new and developed infrastructure.”

“We leaders see the destruction of our culture. We leaders see tears in the eyes of our children because of the constant fear from the “rain of terror” in the skies of Libya from the British and NATO bombings. Our old people suffer from heart problems, increased diabetes and loss of vigor. Our young mothers are losing their babies every day because of the stress of the British and NATO bombings. These lost babies are the future of Libya. They can never be replaced. Our armies have been destroyed by the British and NATO bombings. We cannot defend ourselves from attacks from anyone.”

“As Tribal Leaders of Libya, we must ask why have the British and NATO decided to wage this war against the Libyan people? There are a small percentage of dissidents in the east of Libya that started an armed insurrection against our legitimate authority. Every country has the right to defend itself against armed insurrection. So why cannot Libya defend itself?”

“The Tribal Leaders of Libya demand that all acts of aggression, by the British and NATO, against the Libyan People stop immediately. June 3, 2011″

Does that sound like NATO’s got a winning strategy? If so, they should think again. Even if Gadhaffi falls, NATO has no hope of eliminating the entire tribal structure of the Libya, which embraces all families and clans. Instead NATO is losing the battle for the hearts and minds of the people with every missile that smashes into another building.

Tribal Backlash

The Libyan people are fighting back. This report arrived from Tripoli today. It is not edited, and describes a backlash in tribal warfare from the City of Darna in the East, where the rebellion is supposed to be strongest:

“People found the body of Martyr Hamdi Jumaa Al-Shalwi in Darna city eastern Libya. His head was cut off and then placed in front of the headquarters of the Internal Security Dernah. That was after being kidnapped from a checkpoint complex Herich. In response to this Al-Shalwi family erected a funeral tent to receive condolences in which the green flag [of Libya] was raised. After the funeral the whole city of Darna rose up with all its tribes which include:- the Abu Jazia family, Al-Shalwi family, The Quba families, Ain Marra families. After that, Al-Shalwi family and Bojazia tribe attacked the headquarters of the Transitional Council and shot all the rats (rebels) and green flags were raised. Furthermore, the son of Sofian Qamom was killed, also two members of Al- Qaeda got killed by residents of the city of Darna. The flag of the Libyan Jamahiriya was raised above Darna after the clashes.”

CNN has reported none of this. The corporate media continues to lull Americans into false confidence in the progress of the Libyan War. Americans are way out of the loop as to the failures of the War effort. As a result, Libyans are losing trust in the potential for friendships with the West. An unlikely champion might restore that faith. Right now a team of international attorneys is preparing an emergency grievance on behalf of the Tribal Leaders and the Libyan people. The International Peace Community could contribute substantially to restoring Libya’s faith in the West by supporting this human rights action. Indeed, the Libyan people and Tribal Leaders deserve our support. Together we must demand that NATO face prosecution for War Crimes, citing these examples and others.

NATO governments must be required to pay financial damages to Libyan families, on par with what the U.S. and Britain would demand for their own citizens under identical circumstances. The world cannot tolerate double standards, whereby powerful nations abuse helpless citizens. The International Geneva Conventions of War must be enforced, and equal force of the law must be applied.

The Fight for Misurata

Though attacks are widespread, some of the worst abuses are occurring in Misurata. The City has the only mega port in Libya, and handles transportation for the country, including the largest oil and gas depots. NATO will stop at nothing to take the City.

Refugees report that the Israeli Star of David flag was draped over the largest Mosque in Misurata on the second day of fighting, actions guaranteed to humiliate and antagonize the local population.

NATO forces have cut off food and medical supplies throughout Libya. But the seas are plentiful with fish in Mediterranean waters. Brave fishermen have taken their boats out of port, trying to harvest fish for the hungry population. To break their perseverance, American drones and British war planes steadily fire missiles on the fishing boats, deliberately targeting non-military vessels to chase them out of the waters.

Yet for all of its superior fire power and tactical advantages, NATO still appears to be losing. According to the fact-finding delegation, reporting today, many rebels have left Misurata and have taken boats back to Benghazi. The big central part of Misurata is now free and under central military control. The Libyan people shot down two helicopter gunships near the town of Zlitan. And although Al Jazeera played a grand story about a major uprising against Ghadafi in Tripoli, one of the Tribal leaders’ wives lives on the street that claims to be the center of the demonstration, and declared that she saw no crowds out of her window. Buses pictured in Al Jazeera video do not run in Tripoli.

One has to ask: What kind of society does NATO think it’s creating, if in fact Gadhaffi can be deposed—which looks very unlikely? Have Washington and London learned nothing from their failure in Iraq? The cruelty and debasement of NATO’s forces is already fueling profound hatreds that will continue for the next generation.

Who could be proud of such “allies?” Not the Libyan people, surely.

NATO soldiers are no better than thugs. Anyone else would be labeled terrorists. Most worrisome, NATO’s actions are guaranteed to have serious consequences for long term political stability in Libya. Vendettas are forming between tribes and family clans that will carry over for decades. It is extremely short-sighted and self destructive.

NATO should take this warning to heart: Its soldiers are not legal-proof. The International Peace Community is already taking action to uphold Libya’s natural rights at the United Nations. Many of us in the International Peace Community shall defend Libya’s women. And we shall demand War Crimes prosecution and major financial damages against NATO governments, on behalf of the people.

Nobody’s fooled by NATO’s story that Gadhaffi’s the guilty party. We know that Washington, Britain, France, Italy— and Israel are the real culprits.

The murdered women of Misurata shall have justice. NATO can count on it.

More Proof of rebel atrocities after Gaddafi troops found dead, mutilated in mass grave

Jul 23, 2011

A mass-grave of alleged pro-Gaddafi soldiers has been discovered in a rebel-controlled area in Libya, according to British newspaper The Telegraph. The location was swiftly bulldozed after the discovery, suggesting an attempt to cover-up the killings. The bodies were reportedly mutilated, adding to the recent concerns of human rights abuses by rebels. Such crimes are being swept under the carpet to support NATO’s cause in the region

NATO & Rebel War Crimes in Sirte, Libya (WARNING GRAPHIC FOOTAGE)

NATO Supports Black Genocide in Libya

Daily NATO War Crimes in Libya

July 29 2011
By Stephen Lendman

Among them is waging war on truth, Western managed news calling lawless imperial wars liberating ones. No wonder John Pilger says journalism is the first casualty of war, adding:

“Not only that: it has become a weapon of war, a virulent censorship (and deception) that goes unrecognised in the United States, Britain and other democracies; censorship by omission, whose power is such that, in war, it can mean the difference between life and death for people in faraway countries….”

In their book, “Guardians of Power,” David Edwards and David Cromwell explained why today’s media are in crisis and a free and open society at risk. It’s because press prostitutes substitute fiction for fact. News is carefully filtered, dissent marginalized, and supporting wealth and power substitutes for full and accurate reporting.

It’s a cancer, corrupting everything from corporate-run print and broadcast sources, as well as operations like BBC and what passes for America’s hopelessly compromised public radio and TV. They put out daily managed and junk food news plus infotainment, treating consumers like mushrooms – well-watered and in the dark.

During wars, in fact, they cheerlead them, reporting agitprop and misinformation no respectable journalist would touch.

In a July 28 email, he said tell listeners that “NATO is trying to negotiate with the government in Tripoli.” More on that below. He added that they’re also “planning a new stage of the war against the Libyan people through (predatory) NGOs and fake humanitarian missions.” A likely UN Blue Helmet occupying force also, paramilitaries masquerading as peacekeepers Gaddafi controlled areas won’t tolerate.

NATO, in fact, calls civilian targets legitimate ones, including one or more hospitals, a clinic, factories, warehouses, agricultural sites, schools, a university, one or more mosques, non-military related infrastructure, a food storage facility, and others.

Notably on July 23, a Brega water pipe factory was struck, killing six guards. It produces pipes for Libya’s Great Man-Made River system (GMMR), an ocean-sized aquifer beneath its sands, making the desert bloom for productive agriculture, and supplying water to Libya’s people.

The previous day, a water supply pipeline was destroyed. It will take months to restore. The factory produced vital pipes to do it, a clear war crime like daily others. Moreover, the entire GMMR is threatened by a shortage of spare parts and chemicals. As a result, it’s struggling to keep reservoirs at a level able to provide a sustainable supply. Without it, a humanitarian disaster looms, very likely what NATO plans as in past wars.

On July 27, AFP said that:

“NATO warned that its warplanes will bomb civilian facilities if (Gaddafi’s) forces use them to launch attacks.” At the same time, a spokesman said great care is taken to minimize civilian casualties.

NATO lied. Daily, it’s attacking non-military related sites to destroy Libya’s ability to function in areas loyal to Gaddafi. Earlier, in fact, a spokesman claimed there was “no evidence” civilian targets were hit or noncombatants killed, except one time a major incident was too obvious to hide. Reluctantly it admitted a “mistake,” covering up a willful planned attack, knowing civilians were affected.

Libya (satellite) TV calls itself “a voice for free Libya….struggling to liberate Libya from the grip of the Gaddafi regime….” In fact, it’s a pro-NATO propaganda service, reporting misinformation on air and online.

On July 25, it headlined, “No evidence to support Gaddafi’s allegations that civilian targets were hit,” when, it fact, they’re struck daily.

Nonetheless, it claimed only military sites are bombed, saying Tripoli-based journalists aren’t taken to affected areas, “suggesting NATO’s gunners are hitting military targets, at least in the capital.”

On July 28, Libya TV claimed “captured Gaddafi soldiers say army morale is low,” when, in fact, most Libyans support Gaddafi. Millions are armed. Gaddafi gave them weapons. They could easily oust him if they wish. Instead, they rally supportively, what Western media and Libya TV won’t report.

Moreover, captured soldiers say what they’re told, likely threatened with death or torture if they refuse, especially in rebel paramilitary hands, under NATO orders to terrorize areas they control.

As a result, civilian casualties mount, up to 1,200 or more killed and thousands wounded in pro-Gaddafi areas, many seriously as war rages. In addition, unknown numbers of combatant casualties on both sides aren’t known, nor is the civilian toll in rebel held areas.

Nonetheless, daily sorties and strikes continue. Since mid-July alone through July 27, they include:

July 14: 132 sorties and 48 strikes

July 15: 115 sorties and 46 strikes

July 16: 110 sorties and 45 strikes

July 17: 122 sorties and 46 strikes

July 18: 129 sorties and 44 strikes

July 19: 113 sorties and 40 strikes

July 20: 122 sorties and 53 strikes

July 21: 124 sorties and 45 strikes

July 22: 128 sorties and 46 strikes

July 23: 125 sorties and 56 strikes

July 24: 163 sorties and 43 strikes

July 25: 111 sorties and 54 strikes

July 26: 134 sorties and 46 strikes

July 27: 133 sorties and 54 strikes

Daily patterns are consistent. However, information on numbers and types of bombs, as well as other munitions aren’t given. Instead, misinformation claims a humanitarian mission protects civilians – by terrorizing, killing, and injuring them, solely for imperial aims. It’s why all US-led wars are fought, never for liberating reasons.

The entire campaign is based on lies. It’s standard war time procedure, to enlist popular support for campaigns people otherwise would reject.

In fact, no humanitarian crisis existed until NATO arrived. Moreover, in paramilitary controlled areas, Amnesty International confirmed only 110 pro and anti-Gaddafi supporter deaths combined, most likely more of the former than latter as rebel cutthroats rampaged through areas they occupy. Currently, the numbers of dead and injured civilians are many times that amount, largely from NATO attacks.

NATO, in fact, is code language for the Pentagon, paying the largest share of its operating and military budgets. Except for Germany and Britain, other members pay small shares, most, in fact, miniscule amounts.

Since NATO began bombing on March 19, daily attacks inflicted lawless collective punishment against millions in Gaddafi supported areas. Affected is their ability to obtain food, medicines, fuel and other basic supplies, exposing another lie about humanitarian intervention.

On July 25, OCHA’s fact-finding team said Tripoli contained “pockets of vulnerability where people need urgent humanitarian assistance.” Medical supplies are running low. The last major delivery was in January, and concerns are increasing about the “unsustainable food supply chain for the public distribution systems, especially as Ramadan approaches (on or around August 1 to about August 29) and the conflict persists.”

Moreover, “Libyan oil experts warned that fuel stocks could run out in two weeks.” Public transportation costs have tripled. Food prices have also soared. Tripoli residents experience electricity cuts, and clean water supplies are endangered.

Before conflict erupted, Libyans had the region’s highest standard of living and highest life expectancy in Africa because Gaddafi’s oil wealth provided healthcare, education, housing assistance and other social benefits. Imperial war, of course, changed things. Libyans now hang on to survive.

Seeking an End Game

On July 26, UPI headlined, “NATO seeks urgent exit strategy in Libya,” knowing this phase of the war is lost. Nonetheless, future strategies and campaigns will follow.

For now, however, “NATO is seeking an urgent exit strategy (to end) fighting and decide the future of (Gaddifi), even if that means letting him stay in the country though out of power, it emerged Tuesday after British and French foreign ministers met in London.”

In tribal Libya, Gaddafi’s power, in fact, is far less than reported, social anthropologist Ranier Fsadni saying:

“Gaddafi’s feeling for tribal Libya is certainly one factor that explains how he has managed to rule the country for so many years. (However), (t)here is no tribal office giving a single man a monopoly of institutional power at the apex….Several factors account for his longevity in power,” including sharing Libya’s oil wealth.

UPI said diplomacy is driven by a failed military campaign. As a result, “(i)ntense mediation efforts are underway at different levels at the United Nations and Europe, in African, European and Middle Eastern capitals and Russia.”

Neither side is commenting, but some observers think operations may wind down in weeks, based on an unannounced face-saving solution, despite continued destabilization and future conflict planned. It’s similar to Balkan and Iraq war strategies, a combination of tactics until Washington prevailed.

Libya faces the same end game, though years could pass before it arrives. As a result, Libyans can expect continued hardships. When imperial America shows up, that strategy persists until it prevails, no matter the pain and suffering inflicted. Source

Libyan rebel ethnic cleansing and lynching of black people

July 7, 2011 by HRI Mar

Further specific evidence has emerged that there is a strong racist element within the rebel forces, including at command level, and it is the stated intention of these forces to ethnically cleanse areas they capture of their dark-skinned inhabitants.

Racism amongst the rebels including at command level

In a recent article in the Wall Street Journal, journalist Sam Dagher pointed out the obvious fact that the Libyan war is aggravating ethnic tensions in that country. The article talks about the fate of Tawergha, a small town 25 miles to the south of Misrata, inhabited mostly by black Libyans, a legacy of its 19th-century origins as a transit town in the slave trade:

Ibrahim al-Halbous, a rebel commander leading the fight near Tawergha, says all remaining residents should leave once if his fighters capture the town. “They should pack up,” Mr. Halbous said. “Tawergha no longer exists, only Misrata.”

Other rebel leaders are reported as:

“calling for drastic measures like banning Tawergha natives from ever working, living or sending their children to schools in Misrata.”

In addition, according to the article, as a result of the battle for Misrata:

nearly four-fifths of residents of Misrata’s Ghoushi neighborhood were Tawergha natives. Now they are gone or in hiding, fearing revenge attacks by Misratans, amid reports of bounties for their capture.

Amid allegations of black mercenaries and stories of mass rape by the inhabitants of Tawergha, Sam Dagher reports on further evidence of the racism amongst the rebel forces:

Some of the hatred of Tawergha has racist overtones that were mostly latent before the current conflict. On the road between Misrata and Tawergha, rebel slogans like “the brigade for purging slaves, black skin” have supplanted pro-Gadhafi scrawl.

The racial tensions have been fueled by the regime’s alleged use of African mercenaries to violently suppress demonstrators at the start of the Libyan uprising in February, and the sense that the south of the country, which is predominantly black, mainly backs Col. Gadhafi.

This information has already been publicised, in the WSJ and also in the Black Star News. Bryan Chan of the Los Angeles Times reports visiting a prison in Benghazi, where terrified black men were paraded for the cameras (with Human Rights Watch silently taking notes). One man bravely protested he was just a guest worker and the guards presented a Gambian passport as proof he was a Gaddafi operative. Chan’s Libyan interpreter asked:

“So what do you think? Should we just go ahead and kill them?”

There is a lot of horrific video footage clearly showing public lynchings in Benghazi (link to graphic description of some of the footage). including at the rebel HQ, beheadings of blindfolded prisoners and interrogation of prisoners, including in hospitals.

The myth of black mercenaries leads to lynchings

Other evidence of the massacres of black people, which include the lynchings and murder of black soldiers of the Libyan army, guest workers from other African countries and dark-skinned Libyan civilians include a report from the BBC on 25 February which cited a Turkish construction worker as saying:

“We had 70-80 people from Chad working for our company. They were cut dead with pruning shears and axes, attackers saying: ‘You are providing troops for Gaddafi.’ The Sudanese were also massacred. We saw it for ourselves.”

On 27th February Nick Meo of The Telegraph reported from Al-Bayda that he had been shown mobile phone footage of a ‘captured mercenary‘ (presumably he means black person with a uniform) lynched from a street lamp as well as a ‘black African hanging on a meat hook.’

Amnesty International crisis researcher, Donatella Rovera spent the period from 27 February to 29th May in Misrata, Benghasi, Ajabiya and Ras Lanouf. Yesterday she was interviewed by Austria’s ‘The Standard’ and had this to say on the subject:

“We examined this issue in depth and found no evidence. The rebels spread these rumours everywhere, which had terrible consequences for African guest workers: there was a systematic hunt for migrants, some were lynched and many arrested. Since then, even the rebels have admitted there were no mercenaries, almost all have been released and have returned to their countries of origin, as the investigations into them revealed nothing.”

Who spread the myth and why?

So what accounts for the widespread popularity of this myth? It is, to be frank, an example of highly successful propaganda, appealing to the basest of racial stereotypes. The myth was highly important in gaining consent for the operation in Libya, in order to cover up and justify the massacres of black people taking place.

In account after account, the mercenary myth is used to justify the imprisoning and killing of black people and this process continues today. Given the background of racial tension in Libya, including the October 2000 race riots which led to the killings of 200 people with 1000s forced to flee, the consequences of the spreading of this propaganda were entirely predictable and constitute incitement to commit atrocities.

The myth of black mercenaries was spread by certain political leaders including members of the National Transitional Council in Benghazi, British Defence Minister Liam Fox and NATO spokesperson Oana Longescu .

According to Amnesty, allegations of “African mercenaries” have led to the lynchings

“No one really took that seriously did they? On the 21 March, after the first air strikes on Gadaffi’s troops outside Benghazi, a young man who worked in the media centre presented us with many boxes of the potency drug. He claimed to have found them in the destroyed tanks. The vehicles had been completely burnt out, but the packaging looked brand new. I can not believe that anyone took him seriously.”

NATO enabling human rights abuses

So is NATO actually “protecting civilians” – or is it rather supporting rebels, some of whom who intend to harm dark-skinned Libyans and ethnically cleanse areas over which they take control?

The information contained in this post, is widely known and has been reported in the Independent and other newspapers, so NATO can not claim ignorance of the facts.

As this is being written, the”brigade for purging slaves and black skin,” is advancing on Tawurgha, supported by NATO strikes from the air and on the ground by Special Forces. A rebel commander has declared the intention is to wipe the town off the map and we have already seen the lynchings of black people and the driving out of black people from Ghoushi.

By continuing to escalate the conflict in Libya, allowing the arming and supporting the rebel side, providing bombing support to enable them to advance and refusing to implement a cease-fire as demanded by the United Nations and African Union, NATO is enabling serious abuses of human rights and NATO officials will certainly be held to account. Source

‘We Were Raped, Robbed By Libyan Rebels’

Michael Olugbode

28 October 2011

Maiduguri — Thirty days in the desert after fleeing the crisis-torn Libya, 450 Nigerians yesterday arrived Maiduguri, Borno State, with tales of rape, torture and loss of their personal effects to the fighters opposed to the regime of late Col. Muammar Gaddafi. Source

Mainstream Media’s Coverage Disturbing

By Arthur Chatora

13 October 2011

The mainstream media’s conspicuous silence about the racially motivated human rights abuses perpetrated against black Libyans and immigrants, by the NATO-backed Transitional National Council (TNC) forces in Libya, is disturbing.

Similarly, the high civilian casualties of the current intense fighting in the city of Sirte seems, to a large extent, to be underplayed. Yet organisations such as Human Rights Watch have acknowledged that civilian abuses have continued and called on forces on both sides that are fighting in Sirte to minimize harm to civilians and treat all prisoners humanely.

This biased media coverage raises questions about the credibility of media organisations and their agenda. Is it because the presence of widespread evidence of racially motivated human rights abuses committed by the TNC forces raises moral and ethical questions that challenge the validity of the notion of a “humanitarian war”? The responsibility assumed by NATO and the TNC forces to protect civilian lives from abuse by Gaddafi forces is also questionable, as it appears this mandate does not seem to extend to the protection of black Libyans and African immigrants.

It seems clear that although the United Nations (UN) has acknowledged that war crimes have been committed on both sides, the mainstream media has been preoccupied with covering human rights violations allegedly committed by Col. Muammar Gaddafi’s forces while ignoring those committed by the NATO-backed forces. This is a dissimulation strategy, which demonstrates that the Libyan conflict is being waged on different fronts. A snap content and discourse analysis shows that various media reveal an inherent ideological bias in coverage of the war.

From the inception of the Libyan conflict, a range of organisations within different segments of the media, have generally assumed a narrative that is pro-rebels and anti-Gaddafi in their coverage of the war. The media’s ideological position is the one informed by the dichotomy of “us” (NATO and TNC forces) and “them” (Gaddafi forces), emanating from the fundamental humanitarian reasons and justifications given by the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) to implement the UN Security Council Resolution 1973, adopted to protect civilians from violence and abuses by the Gaddafi regime.

From the outset of the armed conflict, rebel groups earned a reputation as “freedom fighters” or “liberators” working with NATO on a humanitarian mission to protect civilians from violence and abuses. Consequently, some media organisations assumed this ideological position in their coverage of the war, framing the rebels as “pro-democracy liberators” while constructing Gaddafi’s forces as ‘human rights violators’.

Leading media institutions have been producing and articulating these discourses that are in line with representing a binary narrative that supports the position that NATO and the Libyan TNC forces have a humanitarian responsibility to protect civilians’ lives while Gaddafi forces have been primarily constructed as human rights violators.

Sections of the media have continued to dissimulate narratives of racial human abuses committed by rebel forces because such representations are not congruent with or contradict a pre-defined ideological position that constructs rebel forces and their allies as human rights custodians. Thus, such human rights violations and civilian abuses are not afforded media prominence and attention. The dissimulation of unfavourable narratives relates to the concept of symbolic annihilation whereby the media denies a marginalised or minority social group(s) a voice through under-representation or non-coverage in the media.

There have been several cases and evidence of racial violence against black Libyans and African immigrants that have been reported by humanitarian organisations but these cases have rarely been covered by mainstream media organisations. For example, Amnesty International recently released a detailed 107-page report entitled The Battle for Libya: Killings, Disappearances and Torture whose contents show evidence of racial abuses. The report focuses on among other issues, the human rights abuses being committed against black Africans, by both the Gaddafi and the TNC forces.

Similarly, in August 2011 the UN High Commissioner for Refugees issued a strong call for sub-Saharan Africans to be protected in Libya after reports emerged from Tripoli of people being targeted because of their race. The UN High Commissioner for Refugees, AntÃ’nio Guterres, urged restraint from rebel forces and Libyan civilians adding that, Africans especially, have been particularly vulnerable to hostility or acts of vengeance.

The UN has documented several cases of rebels torturing migrant workers in rebel-held areas but these cases have rarely found coverage in mainstream media. More evidence of human rights violations has continued to emerge following the recent publication of a Human Rights Watch (HRW) report on the arbitrary detention of black-skinned people in Tripoli. In a statement Sarah Leah Whitson, Middle East and North Africa director of Human Rights Watch categorically and unequivocally stated that, “The NTC should stop arresting African migrants and black Libyans unless it has concrete evidence of criminal activity. It should also take immediate steps to protect them from violence and abuse.” Similarly, Fred Abrahams, the special advisor at Human Rights Watch recently called on military leaders in Sirte from both sides to make sure that their forces protect civilians or at least allow them to flee the combat zone.

It in interesting to note that despite widespread evidence of such racial abuses perpetrated by the NTC forces, it appears mainstream media organisations have not been willing to represent a narrative that does not conform to its set ideological position and agenda. What has become evident where the reports of racial abuses have reached mainstream media is the framing of a narrative that portrays the victims as “African mercenaries,” despite the availability of adequate evidence to prove that many of the victims were not mercenaries.

Amnesty International reports that, “the allegations about the use of mercenaries proved to be largely unfounded” but this has remained an unknown fact to the public. This revelation demonstrates the media’s complicity in the human rights violations. Therefore, mainstream media organisations have concealed gross abuses that could have been exposed and stopped by not representing and speaking against such human rights violations.

The lack of adequate exposure and coverage of the rebels’ racial violations by mainstream media corroborate the assertion that the media is not serving the public but it is serving power and in the process it has abandoned professional media ethics and standards. Source

Throughout most of Gaddafi’s rule, Libyan citizens enjoyed free health care, free education and free electricity and water. Car purchases for every citizen were 50% subsidized by the government. Gas in Gaddafi’s Libya was $0.14 per liter. Under this ‘brutal dictator’, the mother of every newborn child received $5,000. All these, and many other social benefits under Gaddafi, make the supposedly socialist systems of France and other European nations look like predatory capitalist regimes. Today, with Gaddafi gone, Libya’s generous social benefits and the formerly high standard of living of its citizens are under serious threat from the new pro-Western puppet regime.

Gaddafi was also instrumental in establishing the African Union. He invested heavily and generously, to the tune of $6 billion, in many other African nations. Throughout Africa, hospitals, schools, hotels and roads bear Gaddafi’s name as a sign of gratitude to the ‘brutal dictator’. Libyan investments have helped to connect most of Africa by telephone, television, radio broadcasting, etc. Many major African companies, in which Gaddafi had invested via the ‘Libya Arab Africa Investment Portfolio’, now face financial ruin as Libyan oil money is diverted to the West under Libya’s new rulers. Source

Africans nor Libyans will benefit from Libya’s oil. The poorest continent on the planet. Now it goes to the WEST, the EU and ISRAEL ???????????

So tell me who wants to keep Africa poor?

How many of those rebels were from NATO/US/ISRAEL. I bet they were death squads.

I bet the majority were not from Libya at all.

How sick is that. This was not just an attack on Libya this was an attack on all of Africa. This yet another murderous, bloody, slaughter so the Rich can steal from the poor.

Bloody thieves should be all locked up in jail.

53 Bodies found in a Sirte hotel

Oct 25, 2011

“Some had their hands tied behind their backs when they were shot, said Peter Bouckaert, emergencies director at Human Rights Watch said in a statement. This requires the immediate attention of the Libyan authorities to investigate what happened and prosecute those responsible.

Those preparing the bodies said they believed most of the victims were residents of Sirte, some of them Gaddafi supporters. “ Source

Libya, UN Security Council ends mandate for international military operations

Once again, Mahdi Darius Nazemroaya peels away the veneer of legitimacy and deception enveloping the U.S./NATO genocide currently taking place in Libya. In his first article, Nazemroaya exposed the mechanism by which the world came to “know” of the need for a humanitarian intervention in the Libyan Arab Jamahirya and U.S./NATO admissions of targeted assassination attempts against the Leader of the 1969 Libyan Revolution, Muammar Qaddafi. In his first of these four installments since his return from Libya, Nazemraoya makes it clear that there never was any evidence given to the United Nations or the International Criminal Court to warrant or justify United Nations Resolutions 1970 and 1973 or current U.S./NATO operations inside Libya.
In his second article detailing this very sad story, Nazemroaya exposes the relationships between the major Libyan protagonists/NATO collaborators and the U.S. Congress-funded National Endowment for Democracy. Incredibly, when leading Members of Congress publicly proclaimed repeatedly that they did not know who the Libyan “rebel” NATO collaborators were, select so-called rebel leaders were political intimates with stakeholders at the National Endowment for Democracy. The leaders of the National Transitional Council, contrived to appear highly influential to publics in former colonial capitals, have very little influence or support inside Libya, and can be likened to a Hamid Karzai type of morally bankrupt neo-colonial authority that presides over and gives a fig-leaf of “legitmacy” to those outsiders whose objective is the total destruction of recalcitrant citizens who demand self-determination over their own communities and country. Nazemroaya also exposes that, despite its Global War on Terror, the U.S. government actually financed Libyan terrorists and criminals wanted by INTERPOL.

In this, his third of four installments, Nazemroaya removes the U.S./NATO fig leaf and what he reveals are the abhorrent, obnoxious, inhumane, and cynical machinations of the pro-Israel Lobby that is the only political force that seems to be able to command the mightiest of militaries and the strongest of leaders to act in ways that threaten the peace and tranquility of their own political parties and national security of their own governments. Indeed, by its policy to support Israel, no matter how belligerent its policies, the United States has eroded its own national interest, as warnings from U.S. military leaders continue to point out.

In fact, my own personal experiences with the pro-Israel Lobby inside the United States demonstrate Israel’s intense interest in Africa. I have written about my experience with “the pledge” to support Israel that is forced on every candidate for the U.S. Congress; refusal to sign it, as I did, means not one dollar of the millions expended each election cycle in campaign contributions and can ensure the most vicious media demonization as the major descriptor of the un-cooperating candidate. The demonization of Alabama’s first Black Member of Congress since Reconstruction, Earl Hilliard, in his 2002 re-election campaign, with specific regard to his visits to Libya, immediately come to mind. Weeks later, many of the New York contributors against his re-election, reappeared in my own opponent’s campaign coffers. While I was portrayed in letters to supporters of the pro-Israel Lobby as anti-Israel, I will continue to believe that it was my very real activities in Africa that the pro-Israel Lobby found most threatening. From land reform to blood diamonds to various warnings I sent to certain African oil-producing countries to support for African self-determination and against artificial efforts to create divisions in Cote d’Ivoire, Zaire/Democratic Republic of Congo, Rwanda, and Sudan, I found an incredible interest in all things African on the part of the pro-Israel Lobby.

In fact, I was invited to lease my “Black” face to these very interests and get arrested in front of the Sudan Embassy to sow the very “Black versus Arab” narrative being tragically created in Libya which Nazemroaya describes so thoroughly in this current text. I note here that some Blacks inside and outside of the U.S. Congress did choose to accept this particular invitation and get arrested. My representative was present at the meeting where these activities were planned, finance was arranged, and actions put in motion. This was a purposeful manipulation of U.S. policy and more importantly, of the despicable behaviors in Sudan that led to human rights abuses and crimes against humanity. My own legislation to de-list corporations from the U.S. stock exchange that aided or abetted or engaged in any way in human rights abuses in Sudan was deemed by guardians of the pro-Israel agenda inside the Congress to be an unacceptable answer to the very real abuses taking place in that country.

Additionally, while I was in prison in Israel, the point of the mostly African female prisoners on my Ramle Prison cell block was that they were adherents of “the wrong religion.” The purging of Christians inside Israel is a fact. The scribblings on the wall of my Israeli holding room in another prison complex before my release made it clear that those Christians being deported were not wanted in Israel and they felt that it was because of their religion. Israel’s recent push, despite its non-Jewish residents, to identify itself as a “Jewish state” is telling.

While in Libya, I met many Africans who said that they chose to live there because of the pan-Africanism of the policies of the Libyan Jamahirya. In fact, while at an “Africans in the Diaspora Conference” there in January/February of 2011, I personally witnessed, along with a delegation of others from the United States, Muammar Qaddafi pledge $90 billion to a “United States of Africa” that would work together to build the Continent and counter the efforts to penetrate and recolonize it. Blacks in the United States who struggled for dignity, self-determination, and against U.S. oppression and imperialism during the 1960s and 1970s have a relationship with Muammar Qaddafi and the Jamahirya government that goes back decades. At the 29-stops of my Libya Truth Tour, I met many U.S. citizens who reminded the audiences of the contributions of Muammar Qaddafi and the Jamahirya government against British imperialism in Northern Ireland. Continental Africans attending these Tour-stops reminded audiences of Muammar Qaddafi’s support for Nelson Mandela and Africans struggling to rid the Continent of Apartheid at a time when Israel shared an alliance with that government. They also noted the Jamahirya government’s current support for many development projects throughout the Continent and for the budget of the African Union, itself. Therefore, many alarmed observers have pointed out that the U.S./NATO attack on Libya is actually an attack on all of Africa. Nazemroaya eloquently makes this point while revealing the underlying motives for the “uber-violence” that we see in Libya and that is opposed by large majorities of voters in NATO member states, if reported polling results can be trusted. What comes to my mind is how anyone who identifies with the peace community could support such an attack on Libya, especially while the people of Libya valiantly resist NATO domination.

Nazemroaya makes the essential point: “An attempt to separate the merging point of an Arab and African identity is underway.” The Voice of America has exposed the psychological aspects of its brutal intervention and hints at the mindset of the U.S./NATO Libyan pawns; several stories suggest that the “new” Libya will turn more toward its Arab identity than its African identity. And U.S./NATO successful imposition of the psychological chains of identity denial are the most longlasting of chains. While in Tunisia, I actually came face to face with the fruits of this project when a taxi driver born in Tunisia told me that he was not African! Muammar Qaddafi drove home to all Libyans that Libya, as its geography dictates, is an African country. It seems ludicrous on its face to have to reiterate such a fact except for the racism, brainwashing, and psychological underpinnings of current U.S./NATO policy and its colonial antecedents that Nazemroaya exposes.

Finally, Walter H. Kansteiner has moved in and out of various positions within the foreign policy apparatus of the United States government and has been the voice for exactly the policies described by Nazemroaya. Among Kansteiner’s positions are stints as Africa Director at the State Department and National Security Council Director for African Affairs during the Presidency of George Herbert Walker Bush and Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs during the Presidency of George W. Bush. During these stints, Mr. Kansteiner was in a position to initiate the balkanization of Africa that we now see reaching fruition on the Continent. I was forced to write a

Cynthia McKinney, 10 October 2011.

Cynthia McKinney is a former U.S. Congresswoman who served in two different Georgia federal districts in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1993 to 2003 and from 2005 to 2007 as a member of the U.S. Democratic Party. She was also the U.S. Green Party presidential candidate in 2008. While in the U.S. Congress she served on the U.S. Banking and Finance Committee, the U.S. National Security Committee (later renamed the U.S. Armed Services Committee), and the U.S. Foreign Affairs Committee (later renamed the U.S. International Relations Committee). She also served on the U.S. International Relations subcommittee on International Operations and Human Rights. McKinney has conducted two fact-finding missions to Libya and also recently finished a nationwide speaking tour in the United States sponsored by the ANSWER Coalition regarding the NATO bombing campaign on Libya. Source

Israeli Death Squads to Infiltrate Egyptian Protests

February 2 2011

The office of israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu offered their counterpart in the Egyptian government, Omar Suleiman, also head of Egyptian intelligence, to send death squad units, the groups of militant zionist murderers who wear Arab civilian clothes also known as “mistaaravim”, to infiltrate the protesters in Egypt in order to assassinate the leaders of the opposition and the revolutionary movement who take part in the protests against the dictatorial regime of Hosni Mubarak and his thugs. Source

Would Netanyahu hesitate to send Death Squads into Libya, a country Israel so desires to be in. I think not. For all we know they were with the Anti- Gaddafi protesters.

NATO’s War on Libya is Directed against China: AFRICOM and the Threat to China’s National Energy Security

by F. William Engdahl

September 25 2011

MAP above. Africom’s regional interests. Copyright Stratcom 2011

The Washington-led decision by NATO to bomb Gaddafi’s Libya into submission over recent months, at an estimated cost to US taxpayers of at least $1 billion, has little if anything to do with what the Obama Administration claims was a mission to “protect innocent civilians.” In reality it is part of a larger strategic assault by NATO and by the Pentagon in particular to entirely control China’s economic achilles heel, namely China’s strategic dependence on large volumes of imported crude oil and gas. Today China is the world’s second largest importer of oil after the United States and the gap is rapidly closing.

If we take a careful look at a map of Africa and also look at the African organization of the new Pentagon Africa Command—AFRICOM—the pattern that emerges is a careful strategy of controlling one of China’s most strategically important oil and raw materials sources.

NATO’s Libya campaign was and is all about oil. But not about simply controlling Libyan high-grade crude because the USA is nervous about reliable foreign supplies. It rather is about controlling China’s free access to long-term oil imports from Africa and from the Middle East. In other words, it is about controlling China itself.

Libya geographically is bounded to its north by the Mediterranean directly across from Italy, where Italian ENI oil company has been the largest foreign operator in Libya for years. To its west it is bounded by Tunisia and by Algeria. To its south it is bounded by Chad. To its east it is bounded by both Sudan (today Sudan and Southern Sudan) and by Egypt. That should tell something about the strategic importance of Libya from the standpoint of the Pentagon’s AFRICOM long-term strategy for controlling Africa and its resources and which country is able to get those resources.

Gaddafi’s Libya had maintained strict national state control over the rich reserves of high quality “light, sweet” Libyan crude oil. As of 2006 data Libya had the largest proven oil reserves in Africa, some 35%, larger even than Nigeria. Oil consessions had been extended to Chinese state oil companies as well as Russian and others in recent years. Not surprisingly a spokesman from the so-called opposition claiming victory over Gaddafi, Abdeljalil Mayouf, information manager at Libyan rebel oil firm AGOCO, told Reuters, “We don’t have a problem with Western countries like the Italians, French and UK companies. But we may have some political issues with Russia, China and Brazil.” China and Russia and Brazil either opposed UN sanctions on Libya or pressed for a negotiated settlement of the internal conflict and an end to NATO bombing.

As I have detailed elsewhere,1 Gaddafi, an old adherent of Arab socialism on the line of Egypt’s Gamal Nasser, used the oil revenues to improve the lot of his people. Health care was free as was education. Each Libyan family was given a state grant of $50000 towards buying a new house and all bank loans were according to Islamic anti-usury laws, interest free. The state was also free of debt. Only by bribery and massive infiltration into the tribal opposition areas of the eastern part of the country could the CIA, MI6 and other NATO intelligence operatives, at an estimated cost of $1 billion, and massive NATO bombing of civilians, destabilize the strong ties between Gaddafi and his people.

Why then did NATO and the Pentagon lead such a mad and destructive assault on a peaceful sovereign country? Clear is that one of the prime reasons was to complete the encirclement of China’s oil and vital raw material sources across northern Africa.

Pentagon alarm over China

Step-by-step in the past several years Washington had begun to create the perception that China, which was the “dear friend and ally of America” less than a decade ago, was becoming the greatest threat to world peace because of China’s enormous economic expansion. The painting of China as a new “enemy” has been complex as Washington is dependent on China to buy the lion’s share of the US Government debt in the form of Treasury paper.

In August the Pentagon released its annual report to Congress on China’s military status. 2 This year the report sent alarm bells ringing across China for a strident new tone. The report stated among other things, “Over the past decade, China’s military has benefited from robust investment in modern hardware and technology. Many modern systems have reached maturity and others will become operational in the next few years,” the Pentagon said in the report. It added that “there remains uncertainty about how China will use its growing capabilities… China’s rise as a major international actor is likely to stand out as a defining feature of the strategic landscape of the early 21st century.”3

In a matter of perhaps two to five years, depending on how the rest of the world reacts or plays their cards, the Peoples’ Republic of China will emerge in the controlled Western media painted as the new “Hitler Germany.” If that seems hard to believe today, just reflect on how that was done with former Washington allies such as Egypt’s Mubarak or even Saddam Hussein. In June this year, former US Secretary of the Navy and now US Senator from Virginia, James Webb, startled many in Beijing when he told press that China was fast approaching what he called a “Munich moment,” when Washington must decide how to maintain a strategic balance, a reference to the 1938 crisis over Czechoslovakia when Chamberlain opted for appeasement with Hitler over Czechoslovakia. Webb added, “If you look at the last 10 years, the strategic winner has been China.” 4

The same massively effective propaganda machine of the Pentagon, led by CNN, BBC, the New York Times or London Guardian will get the subtle command from Washington to “paint China and its leaders black.” China is becoming far too strong and far too independent for many in Washington and in Wall Street. To control that, above all China’s oil import dependency has been identified as her Achilles Heel. Libya is a move to strike directly at that vulnerable Achilles heel.

China moves into Africa

The involvement of Chinese energy and raw materials companies across Africa had become a major cause of alarm in Washington where an attitude of malign neglect had dominated Washington Africa policy since the Cold War era. As its future energy needs became obvious several years ago China began a major African economic diplomacy which reached a crescendo in 2006 when Beijing literally rolled out the red carpet to heads of more than forty African states and discussed a broad range of economic issues. None were more important for Beijing than securing future African oil resources for China’s robust industrialization.

China moved into countries which had been virtually abandoned by former European colonial powers like France or Britain or Portugal

Chad is a case in point. The poorest and most geographically isolated African countries, Chad was courted by Beijing which resumed diplomatic ties in 2006.

In October 2007 China’s state oil giant CNPC signed a contract to build a refinery jointly with Chad’s government. Two years later they began construction of an oil pipeline to carry oil from a new Chinese field in the south some 300 kilometers to the refinery. Western-supported NGO’s predictably began howling about environmental impacts of the Chinese oil pipeline. The same NGOs were curiously silent when Chevron struck oil in 2003 in Chad. In July 2011 the two countries, Chad and China celebrated opening of the joint venture oil refinery near Chad’s capital of Ndjamena. 5 Chad’s Chinese oil activities are strikingly close to another major Chinese oil project in what then was Sudan’s Darfur region bordering Chad.

Sudan had been a growing source of oil flows to China since cooperation began in the late 1990s after Chevron abandoned its stake there. By 1998 CNPC was building a 1500 km long oil pipeline from southern Sudan oilfields to Port Sudan on the Red Sea as well as building a major oil refinery near Khartoum. Sudan was the first large overseas oilfield project operated by China. By the beginning of 2011 Sudan oil, most all from the conflict-torn south, provided some 10% of China’s oil imports from taking more than 60% of Sudan’s daily oil production of 490,000 barrels. Sudan had become a point of vital Chinese national energy security.

According to geological estimates, the subsurface running from Darfur in what was southern Sudan through Chad into Cameroon is one giagantic oil field in extent perhaps equivalent to a new Saudi Arabia. Controlling southern Sudan as well as Chad and Cameroon is vital to the Pentagon strategy of “strategic denial” to China of their future oil flows. So long as a stable and robust Ghaddafi regime remained in power in Tripoli that control remained a major problem. The simultaneous splitting off of the Republic of South Sudan from Khartoum and the toppling of Ghaddafi in favor of weak rebel bands beholden to Pentagon support was for the Pentagon Full Spectrum Dominance of strategic priority.

AFRICOM responds

The key force behind the recent wave of Western military attacks against Libya or more covert regime changes such as those in Tunisia, Egypt and the fateful referendum in southern Sudan which has now made that oil-rich region “independent” has been AFRICOM, the special US military command established by the Bush Administration in 2008 explicitly to counter the growing Chinese influence over Africa’s vast oil and mineral wealth.

In late 2007, Dr. J. Peter Pham, a Washington insider who advises the US State and Defense Departments, stated openly that among the aims of the new AFRICOM, is the objective of “protecting access to hydrocarbons and other strategic resources which Africa has in abundance … a task which includes ensuring against the vulnerability of those natural riches and ensuring that no other interested third parties, such as China, India, Japan, or Russia, obtain monopolies or preferential treatment.” 6

In testimony before the US Congress supporting creation of AFRICOM in 2007, Pham, who is associated with the neo-conservative Foundation for Defense of Democracies, stated:

“This natural wealth makes Africa an inviting target for the attentions of the People’s Republic of China, whose dynamic economy…has an almost insatiable thirst for oil as well as a need for other natural resources to sustain it…China is currently importing approximately 2.6 million barrels of crude per day, about half of its consumption; more than 765,000 of those barrels—roughly a third of its imports—come from African sources, especially Sudan, Angola, and Congo (Brazzaville). Is it any wonder, then, that…perhaps no other foreign region rivals Africa as the object of Beijing’s sustained strategic interest in recent years…

Intentionally or not, many analysts expect that Africa—especially the states along its oil-rich western coastline—will increasingly becoming a theatre for strategic competition between the United States and its only real near-peer competitor on the global stage, China, as both countries seek to expand their influence and secure access to resources.”7

It is useful to briefly recall the sequence of Washington-sponsored “Twitter” revolutions in the ongoing so-called Arab Spring. The first was Tunisia, an apparently insignificant land on north Africa’s Mediterranean. However Tunisia is on the western border of Libya. The second domino to fall in the process was Mubarak’s Egypt. That created major instability across the Middle East into north Africa as Mubarak for all his flaws had fiercely resisted Washington Middle East pollicy. Israel also lost a secure ally when Mubarak fell.

Then in July 2011 Southern Sudan declared itself the independent Republic of South Sudan, breaking away from Sudan after years of US-backed insurgency against Khartoum rule. The new Republic takes with it the bulk of Sudan’s known oil riches, something clearly not causing joy in Beijing. US Ambassador to the UN Susan Rice, led the US delegation to the independence celebrations, calling it “a testament to the Southern Sudanese people.” She added, in terms of making the secssion happen, “the US has been as active as anyone.” US President Obama openly supported seccession of the south. The breakaway was a project guided and financed from Washington since the Bush Administration decided to make it a priority in 2004. 8

Now Sudan has suddenly lost its main source of hard currency oil revenue. The secession of the south, where three-quarters of Sudan’s 490 000 barrels a day of oil is produced, has aggravated economic difficulties in Khartoum cutting some 37% off its total revenues. Sudan’s only oil refineries and the only export route run north from oilfields to Port Sudan on the Red Sea in northern Sudan. South Sudan is now being encouraged by Washington to build a new export pipeline independent of Khartoum via Kenya. Kenya is one of the areas of strongest US military influence in Africa.9

The aim of the US-led regime change in Libya as well as the entire Greater Middle East Project which lies behind the Arab Spring is to secure absolute control over the world’s largest known oil fields to control future policies in especially countries like China. As then US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger is reported to have said during the 1970’s when he was arguably more powerful than the President of the United States, “If you control the oil you control entire nations or groups of nations.” Source

Yes people it is definitely about oil. Absolutely not about Human Rights.

In the link below there is also a lot of information you may not know about.

Now ask yourself are the US lead NATO forces making the world a safer place, or are they just killing in their path, for control of the oil?

If any of the NATO countries think they will come out well at the end of all this they too are dead wrong the US will take them out last after they have worn out their usefulness just like all the other Allies the US has done away with.

How stupid they all are, the US and their best friends, always eliminates it’s allies one way or the other.

Seems the EU is going bankrupt.

Well who is behind all the Banking problems children?

Your being eliminated as I write this you just fail to see it.

Borrow from the IMF or World Bank children and you will enslaved like other countries.

They want you to borrow, they want you to go bankrupt, they want cheap slaves to work for ever, to serve them.

Being a member of NATO will not protect you, any more then being a member of the EU or UN for that matter.

America’s War in the Horn of Africa: “Drone Alley” – a Harbinger of Western Power across the African Continent

US Military Confirms Washington’s Secret New War in Somalia Despite Official Denials

by Finian Cunningham
October 29, 2011

US military sources have confirmed that the Obama administration is engaged in a new war in the famine-hit Horn of Africa region.

The disclosure in the Washington Post [1] comes only days after other prominent Western media outlets, including the New York Times and the Financial Times, carried denials from the US government that it was involved in directly supporting Kenyan forces that invaded Somalia on 16 October.

Global Research first reported on 19 October [2] the lethal use of US drones in attacks on various locations across southern Somalia in a coordinated air campaign to assist the advance of Kenyan ground troops deep into Somali territory held by Islamic insurgents. We reported that US drones began attacking Somali targets days before the Kenyan army began its incursion, and have continued in a pattern that indicates American air power is being used to pave the way for ground forces as they advance towards the southern port city of Kismayu – the main stronghold of the Al Shabab insurgents, which the US government accuses of having links with Al Qaeda.

It is believed that scores of Somali fighters and civilians have been killed over the past two weeks by US unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) that have attacked several cities and towns, including Qoqani, Afmadow and Kismayu. Global Research also reported on 26 October [3] that French naval forces had joined the bombing campaign – again despite official French denials carried in Western media – and that the conclusion from these military developments was clear: Washington and Paris are now engaging in a secret new war in East Africa ¬– a region where up to 12 million people are at risk of starvation from years of drought and Western-induced conflict.

On 27 October, the Washington Post cited US military officials confirming the deployment of attack and surveillance drones in “a rapidly expanding US-led proxy war against an al Qaeda affiliate in East Africa”. The UAVs – also known as Reapers or Hunter Killers – are believed to be operated from a site in southern Ethiopia, Arba Minch, as well as from US bases in Djibouti and the Seychelles in the Indian Ocean.

The WP report states: “The [US] Air Force has invested millions of dollars to upgrade an airfield in Arba Minch, Ethiopia, where it has built a small annex to house a fleet of drones that can be equipped with Hellfire missiles and satellite-guided bombs. The Reapers began flying missions earlier this year over neighboring Somalia… The location of the Ethiopian base and the fact that it became operational this year, however, have not been previously disclosed.”

This disclosure of US military operations in Somalia amounts to an admission that Washington is at war. However, the Washington Post, while stating “rapidly expanding US-led proxy war”, does not highlight the legal implications of that startling admission, concentrating its reportage on technical and logistical issues that are providing “support for [US] security assistance programs”.

Iranian news channel Press TV – citing civilian eyewitnesses and Kenyan and Somali military officials – has been one of the few media outlets that has consistently reported the almost daily lethal US drone attacks in southern Somalia since the Kenyan invasion. However, even Press TV has not drawn the explicit conclusion that this amounts to war.

While the other Western news media, including the BBC, Reuters and the New York Times, had earlier reported increased US drone activity in Somalia between June and September, these outlets appeared to have dropped coverage of the deadly attacks being reported since and just before 16 October.

Following the disclosure in the Washington Post, the BBC on 28 October seemed to resume its coverage, with the headline: “US flies drones from Ethiopia to fight Somali militants”. The BBC, as with the WP, does not view this as an act of war, and stressed that the “remotely-piloted drones were being used only for surveillance” – contrary to evidence on the ground.

As well as playing down the fact of US-led war in Somalia, the mainstream media now seem to be crafting a new narrative for the military offensive. The initial pretext for the Kenyan ground invasion faithfully repeated in the Western media was the “hot pursuit” of kidnap gangs allegedly belonging to Al Shabab. It is true that there has been a spate of kidnappings of Western holidaymakers and aid workers from Kenyan territory by gangs suspected to originate inside Somalia. However, there is no proof that Al Shabab has been involved and indeed the militant group has denied any involvement.

Now it seems that the rationale being given for the Kenyan invasion and Western “technical support” has subtly morphed into an extension of the “war on terror”. Al Shabab has been waging an insurgency against the Transitional Federal Government in Mogadishu, which was installed in 2009 with the support of US and other Western governments as a bulwark against the Islamists. The TFG has only managed to maintain a tenuous grip on power thanks in part to Washington’s military and economic support and to the presence of thousands of African Union troops from Uganda and Burundi.

Al Shabab is on Washington’s terror list and is accused of having links to Al Qaeda. However, many Western analysts do not consider Al Shabab to be a regional threat. The Council on Foreign Relations, the Washington-aligned think-tank, estimates that the group has only a few hundred hardcore combatants and that its alleged links to Al Qaeda may be no more than rhetorical. Nevertheless, the militants have prevented the pro-Western TFG from gaining control of the country. In that way, the group has thwarted Washington and Western geopolitical dominance of the strategically important East African maritime territory.

This would seem to be a more plausible explanation for the US/French/Kenyan war in Somalia. Namely, the assertion of Western geopolitical control, rather than “war on terror” and certainly not the hot pursuit of kidnap gangs. That gives the real meaning behind the “constellation of US drone bases” being operated in the region – to strike any African country when and where required. Currently, Somalia (and Yemen) is in the firing line. But the entire region appears being turned into a “drone alley”. It is perhaps only a matter of time before reports emerge of drone activity in Sudan, Eritrea, Uganda and elsewhere. The recent deployment of US Special Forces in Uganda and other Central African countries is also a harbinger of this strategic force projection.

The bigger picture to this is, as John Pilger noted previously in Global Research, a “modern scramble for African resources” by Western powers, which have in recent years watched enviously the growing influence of China in the region. This neo-imperialist scramble for Africa is consistent with NATO’s conquest of Libya. The close collaboration between the US and France in the bombing of North Africa is now being rolled out in East Africa.

It also marks a new era of lawlessness by Western powers. Not only can President Barack Obama personally order the assassination of individuals with his penchant for “hunter killer” drones. Evidently from developments in Somalia, Commander-in-Chief Obama is no longer obliged to notify the US Congress or the American people of their country’s engagement in new wars. Nor is he obliged to even seek a phony UN mandate. Not so long ago such abuse of power would be sure grounds for impeachment. Source

It’s time for the true war criminals to be prosecuted.

Posted by PC War Crimes

October 21st, 2011

The Nuremberg Tribunal condemned a war of aggression in the strongest terms: “To initiate a war of aggression . . . is not only an international crime; it is the supreme international crime differing only from other war crimes in that it contains within itself the accumulated evil of the whole.” It held individuals accountable for “crimes against peace”, defined as the “planning, preparation, initiation or waging of a war of aggression, or a war in violation of international treaties, agreements or assurances, or participation in a common plan or conspiracy for the accomplishment of any of the foregoing….” When the United Nations General Assembly unanimously affirmed the Nuremberg principles in 1946, it affirmed the principle of individual accountability for such crimes.

Barack Hussein Obama, David Cameron, Nicolas Sarkozy and Stephen Harper have breached the Geneva Convention with the willful planning, preparing and initiating of a war of aggression against Libya. Libya did not attack the United States, France, the UK, Canada or any other foreign state. Libyan leaders have only killed foreign paid mercenaries. Mercenaries are not protected by the Geneva Convention. Any leader of any country can kill any and all mercenaries who are actively participating in acts of rebellion, revolt, sabotage, or any other act that seeks to overthrown the government.

If foreign mercenaries were to enter Canada and try to overthrow the government of Canada by acts of violence including rebellion, revolt, sabotage or armed attacks then the Canadian government would be legally permitted to use lethal force to either capture or eliminate the threat. That is exactly what has happened in Libya. Foreign mercenaries were paid by the United States government (through the CIA) and the Israeli government (through the Mossad) to infiltrate Libya to overthrow Muammar Gaddaffi. Foreign paid and controlled mercenaries were ordered to use violence to overthrow the Libyan government. For the sake of national security Gaddaffi ordered a crackdown against the violence initiated by the CIA / Mossad mercenaries who entered his country illegally to overthrown his government. Gaddaffi forces have killed only foreign mercenaries (people not protected by the Geneva Convention). It is French, United States, British and Canadian forces who are killing Libyan civilians in their illegal war of aggression against Libya.

Barack Hussein Obama, David Cameron, Nicolas Sarkozy and Stephen Harper have willfully participated in a common plan to launch an unprovoked armed attack against the territorial integrity and political independence of Libya. News media reports from Canada, the U.S. and Europe unequivocally demonstrates that all the elements of a war crime are present.

Harper claims the UN has authorized the use of force against Libya. The UN Security Council can never authorize the use of force by any UN member state against any other nation state. UN Charter Article 2 Section 4

All Members shall refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state, or in any other manner inconsistent with the Purposes of the United Nations.

The UN Charter Article 2 Section 7 specifically forbids its members from participating in the kind of aggression that Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper has willfully planned for, prepared for and initiated against Libya.

Nothing contained in the present Charter shall authorize the United Nations to intervene in matters which are essentially within the domestic jurisdiction of any state or shall require the Members to submit such matters to settlement under the present Charter; but this principle shall not prejudice the application of enforcement measures under Chapter Vll.

In 1974, the United Nations General Assembly adopted a definition of aggression. It defined aggression as necessarily being the act of a State, and described the specific actions of one State against another which constitute aggression. In its work on the draft Code of Crimes against the Peace and Security of Mankind, the United Nations International Law Commission, echoing the Nuremberg Tribunal, also concluded that individuals could be held accountable for acts of aggression. The Commission indicated the specific conduct for which individuals could be held accountable — initiating, planning, preparing or waging aggression — and that only those individuals in positions of leadership who order or actively participate in the acts could incur responsibility. Barack Hussein Obama, David Cameron, Nicolas Sarkozy and Stephen Harper can be held accountable for “initiating, planning, preparing or waging aggression” against the sovereign state of Libya and its people. UN Resolution 1973 does not authorized the use of force against Libyan civilian infrastructure nor its elected leaders. Use of force was unlawfully authorized (resolution is a violation of the UN Charter Article 2 Section 4 and 7) for the purpose of protecting civilians and civilian populated areas and no ‘foreign occupation force of any form is permitted.’

Barack Hussein Obama, David Cameron, Nicolas Sarkozy and Stephen Harper have not only prepared for and planned for a war of aggression against Libya and its civilian population it has and continues to launch air strikes that has destroyed civilian infrastructure and killed unknown numbers of civilians who were residing or working in those targeted and destroyed civilian buildings.

The United States, France, the UK nor Canada are not and can not become a safe haven for persons who willfully commit war crimes, crimes against humanity or other reprehensible acts regardless of who they might be, and when or where they commit their heinous and cowardly acts of aggression and assault against any civilian and any civilian population.

Under Canada’s War Crimes Program, war criminals and those responsible for crimes against humanity are not welcomed in Canada, whether the crimes were committed during World War II or more recently.

Having ratified the Geneva Convention, Canada incorporated its principles into domestic law through the Crimes Against Humanity and War Crimes Act. Under this domestic law, the RCMP can investigate government officials. Stephen Harper and Peter MacKay can be put on trial in Canada for war crimes, crimes against humanity and murder.

It’s time to insist that the true war criminals be prosecuted, regardless of who they are. It’s time for the heads of states of the United States, France, the UK and Canada to be formally charged with war crimes and crimes against humanity. To try them and hold them accountable for the crimes they have feloniously, willingly, and willfully committed against the Libyan people. They have unlawful killed thousands of Libyan civilians with malice aforethought. They are criminals. Criminals must be held accountable for their crimes and they must be punished for their crimes. Barack Hussein Obama, David Cameron, Nicolas Sarkozy and Stephen Harper are not above the law. They are all accountable to the law.

Poll Results as of September 17, 2011

Should US, French, UK and Canadian heads of state be indicted for crimes against humanity and war crimes in Libya?

Yes (57%, 4,067 Votes)

No (29%, 2,087 Votes)

Only Obama and Sarkozy (14%, 960 Votes)

Total Voters: 7,114

The majority (57%) agree thatBarack Hussein Obama, David Cameron, Nicolas Sarkozy and Stephen Harper should be indicted for crimes against humanity and war crimes in Libya?

Will these two ever be sent to prison, probably not. They should however if found guilty, be in prison for the rest of their lives.

We really do have to start locking these people up or wars will never end.

Bush and Blair to be Tried for War Crimes in Kuala Lumpur

2011 October 24

By David Swanson

KUALA LUMPUR, 20 October 2011 – On November 19-22, 2011, the trial of George W Bush (former U.S. President) and Anthony L Blair (former British Prime Minister) will be held in Kuala Lumpur. This is the first time that war crimes charges will be heard against the two former heads of state in compliance with proper legal process.

Charges are being brought against the accused by the Kuala Lumpur War Crimes Commission (KLWCC) following the due process of the law. The Commission, having received complaints from war victims in Iraq in 2009, proceeded to conduct a painstaking and an in-depth investigation for close to two years and in 2011, constituted formal charges on war crimes against Bush, Blair and their associates.

The Iraq invasion in 2003 and its occupation had resulted in the death of 1.4 million Iraqis. Countless others had endured torture and untold hardship. The cries of these victims have thus far gone unheeded by the international community. The fundamental human right to be heard has been denied to them.

As a result, the KLWCC had been established in 2008 to fill this void and act as a peoples’ initiative to provide an avenue for such victims to file their complaints and let them have their day in a court of law.

The first charge against George W Bush and Anthony L Blair is for Crimes Against Peace wherein:

The Accused persons had committed Crimes against Peace, in that the Accused persons planned, prepared and invaded the sovereign state of Iraq on 19 March 2003 in violation of the United Nations Charter and international law.

The second charge is for Crime of Torture and War Crimes against eight citizens of the United States and they are namely George W Bush, Donald Rumsfeld, Dick Cheney, Alberto Gonzales, David Addington, William Haynes, Jay Bybee and John Yoo. wherein:
The Accused persons had committed the Crime of Torture and War Crimes, in that: The Accused persons had wilfully participated in the formulation of executive orders and directives to exclude the applicability of all international conventions and laws, namely the Convention against Torture 1984, Geneva Convention III 1949, Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the United Nations Charter in relation to the war launched by the U.S. and others in Afghanistan (in 2001) and in Iraq (in March 2003); Additionally, and/or on the basis and in furtherance thereof, the Accused persons authorised, or connived in, the commission of acts of torture and cruel, degrading and inhuman treatment against victims in violation of international law, treaties and conventions including the Convention against Torture 1984 and the Geneva Conventions, including Geneva Convention III 1949.

The trial will be held before the Kuala Lumpur War Crimes Tribunal, which is constituted of imminent persons with legal qualifications.

The judges of the Tribunal, which is headed by retired Malaysian Federal Court judge Dato’ Abdul Kadir Sulaiman, also include other notable names such as Mr Alfred Lambremont Webre, a Yale graduate, who authored several books on politics, Dato’ Zakaria Yatim, retired Malaysian Federal Court judge, Tunku Sofiah Jewa, practising lawyer and author of numerous publications on International Law, Prof Salleh Buang, former Federal Counsel in the Attorney-General Chambers and prominent author, Prof Niloufer Bhagwat, an expert in Constitutional Law, Administrative Law and International Law, and Prof Emeritus Datuk Dr Shad Saleem Faruqi, prominent academic and professor of law.

The Tribunal will adjudicate and evaluate the evidence presented as in any court of law. The judges of the Tribunal must be satisfied that the charges are proven beyond reasonable doubt and deliver a reasoned judgement.

In the event the tribunal convicts any of the accused, the only sanction is that the name of the guilty person will be entered in the Commission’s Register of War Criminals and publicised worldwide. The tribunal is a tribunal of conscience and a peoples’ initiative.

The prosecution for the trial will be lead by Prof Gurdial S Nijar, prominent law professor and author of several law publications and Prof Francis Boyle, leading American professor, practitioner and advocate of international law, and assisted by a team of lawyers.

The trial will be held in an open court on November 19-22, 2011 at the headquarters of the Al- Bukhary Foundation at Jalan Perdana, Kuala Lumpur. Source

Libyan Leader Muammar Qaddafi was traveling under a negotiated “White Flag” truce last Thursday in an agreement to leave Libya. More claims from sources inside Misrata, Libya that the Libyan National Transitional Council did in fact agree to allow Qaddafi and his convoy safe passage out of Libya. Source

NATO’s 26,000 sorties, including 9,600 strike missions, destroyed, water, schools, hospitals, food, and many other necessities needed by civilians. They also killed many civilians. These are War Crimes.

November 5 Update

War Crimes – Rape and Murder of Gaddafi’s Female Bodyguards

NATO: Indictment for breach of international law in the Great Socialist People’s Libyan Arab Jamahiriya. The military and political leaders of NATO are hereby accused of the following crimes committed in the Libyan campaign of 2011, in which the systematic breaches of international law are underlined. Go to site below for the rest.

A US rocket has struck a residential area in war-torn Afghanistan, claiming the lives of at least 10 Afghan civilians,

The fatal blast took place in a village in the northeastern Kunar Province.

The attack follows a surprise visit by US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to Kabul, to take part in a meeting aiming at finding a political solution to substitute the decade-long US-led war in Afghanistan.

The killing of civilians by foreign forces has dramatically intensified anti-American sentiments in Afghanistan.

Estimates put the number of the war-related deaths in Afghanistan at around 5.6 million. The fatalities have reportedly been caused, besides violence, by hunger, deprivation, and other instances of adversity generated by the US-led invasion and occupation of the country.

Just recently Afghan President Hamid Karzai demanded that the US-led NATO force provide an explanation for the killing of three members of a family in an operation in the pre-dawn hours of Sunday in the Chaki Wardak district of Wardak Province.

Insecurity continues to climb across Afghanistan despite the presence of nearly 150,000 US-led forces in the war-ravaged country. Source

‘Afghans will stand by Pakistan in war’

Afghan President Hamid Karzai says that Afghanistan is strictly opposed to any US attack on Pakistan and will stand by Islamabad if Washington takes such an extreme step.

“God forbid, if a war erupts between Pakistan and the United States, we (Afghanistan) will stand by Pakistan,” Karzai told Pakistan’s Geo television network in an interview broadcast on Saturday, Reuters reported.

Karzai also said that if Pakistan is ever attacked by another country and needs help, “Afghanistan will be there with you. Afghanistan is a brother.”

The Afghan president stated, “Afghanistan will never forget the welcome, the hospitality, the respect, and the brotherhood showed by the Pakistani people towards the Afghan people.”

Karzai added, “Anybody that attacks Pakistan, Afghanistan will stand with Pakistan. Afghanistan will be a brother of Pakistan. Afghanistan will never betray a brother.”

During a meeting with US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in Islamabad on Thursday, October 20, Gilani raised the objection and stated that the United States must use the bilateral forum to voice any complaints.

Meanwhile, Pakistani Army Chief General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani has cautioned the United States against launching a unilateral ground operation in the North Waziristan tribal region of Pakistan.

In a closed door briefing on Tuesday, October 18, Kayani told Pakistani lawmakers, “Any such attack by US forces from across the Afghan border would prove 10 times harder than the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.”

Reports that US troops are massing in Afghanistan along the border with Pakistan have raised concern in Pakistan that the US might be planning an attack on North Waziristan.

The US recently began pressing Pakistan to take military action in North Waziristan against the Taliban-linked Haqqani network.

The Haqqani group has been accused of attacking the US Embassy in Kabul and carrying out a truck bombing on a NATO outpost that injured over 70 US soldiers in September.

Some US officials have accused Pakistan’s intelligence agency, Inter Services Intelligence, of supporting the Haqqani group, but Pakistan vehemently denies the charges.

US-Pakistan relations are already strained over the civilian casualties caused by the non-UN-sanctioned US drone attacks, which Pakistan has repeatedly condemned as violations of its sovereignty.

The aerial attacks, initiated by former US President George W. Bush, have escalated under President Barack Obama’s administration.

Tension between Islamabad and Washington increased following a secret US attack in Pakistan that allegedly killed al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden in May. Source
Have to say however that Bin Laden died in December of 2001.

‘Pakistan blocking attacks against Iran’

October 22 2001

Iran’s deputy interior minister for security affairs says Islamabad has assured Tehran that it will not allow terrorist groups to use its soil to launch attacks against the country.

“Due to the long border between Iran and Pakistan, enemies have constantly tried to take advantage of regional issues, but [their efforts] have been foiled because of the vigilance of the two countries,” Ali Abdollahi was quoted by IRNA as saying on Saturday.

Speaking on the sidelines of the 7th Iran and Pakistan security session in Tehran, Abdollahi said the vigilance of both countries has prevented terrorist groups from attacking Iran from Pakistan in the past 11 months.

The seventh session of the special security committee of Iran and Pakistan was held in the Iranian Interior Ministry attended by the security and police officials of both countries on Saturday.

Criminal State – A Closer Look at Israel’s Role in Terrorism/NATO and US supporting the Rebels who are actually terrorist on the US/NATO Terrorist list. I thought the war was against terrorist not to help them. I guess they have been helping the Terrorists all along. Anything to keep the wars going for the profiteers.

Now that the CIA’s proxy army has murdered Gadhafi, what next for Libya?

If Washington’s plans succeed, Libya will become another American puppet state. Most of the cities, towns, and infrastructure have been destroyed by air strikes by the air forces of the US and Washington’s NATO puppets. US and European firms will now get juicy contracts, financed by US taxpayers, to rebuild Libya. The new real estate will be carefully allocated to lubricate a new ruling class picked by Washington. This will put Libya firmly under Washington’s thumb.

With Libya conquered, AFRICOM will start on the other African countries where China has energy and mineral investments. Obama has already sent US troops to Central Africa under the guise of defeating the Lord’s Resistance Army, a small insurgency against the ruling dictator-for-life. The Republican Speaker of the House, John Boehner, welcomed the prospect of yet another war by declaring that sending US troops into Central Africa “furthers US national security interests and foreign policy.” Republican Senator James Inhofe added a gallon of moral verbiage about saving “Ugandan children,” a concern the senator did not have for Libya’s children or Palestine’s, Iraq’s, Afghanistan’s and Pakistan’s.

Washington has revived the Great Power Game and is vying with China. Whereas China brings Africa investment and gifts of infrastructure, Washington sends troops, bombs and military bases. Sooner or later Washington’s aggressiveness toward China and Russia is going to explode in our faces.

Where is the money going to come from to finance Washington’s African Empire? Not from Libya’s oil. Big chunks of that have been promised to the French and British for providing cover for Washington’s latest war of naked aggression. Not from tax revenues from a collapsing US economy where unemployment, if measured correctly, is 23 percent.

With Washington’s annual budget deficit as huge as it is, the money can only come from the printing press.

Washington has already run the printing press enough to raise the consumer price index for all urban consumers (CPI-U) to 3.9% for the year (as of the end of September), the consumer price index for urban wage earners and clerical workers (CPI-W) to 4.4% for the year, and the producer price index (PPI) to 6.9% for the year.

As statistician John Williams (shadowstats.com) has shown, the official inflation measures are rigged in order to hold down cost of living adjustments to Social Security recipients, thus saving money for Washington’s wars. When measured correctly, the current rate of inflation in the US is 11.5%.

What interest rate can savers get without taking massive risks on Greek bonds? US banks pay less than one-half of one percent on FDIC insured savings deposits. Short-term US government bond funds pay essentially zero.

Thus, according to official US government statistics American savers are losing between 3.9% and 4.4% of their capital yearly. According to John Williams’ estimate of the real rate of inflation, US savers are losing 11.5% of their accumulated savings.

As retired Americans receive no interest on their savings, they are having to spend down their capital. The ability of even the most prudent retirees to survive the negative rate of interest they are receiving and the erosion by inflation of any pensions that they receive will come to an end once their accumulated assets are exhausted.

Except for Washington’s favored mega-rich, the one percent that has captured all of the income gains of recent years, the rest of America has been assigned to the trash can. Nothing whatsoever has been done for them since the financial crisis hit in December 2007. Bush and Obama, Republican and Democrat, have focused on saving the 1 percent while giving the finger to the 99 percent.

Finally, some Americans, though not enough, have caught on to the flag-waving rah-rah “patriotism” that has consigned them to the trash bin of history. They are not going down without a fight and are in the streets. Occupy Wall Street has spread. What will be the fate of this movement?

Will the snow and ice of cold weather end the protests, or send them into public buildings? How long will the local authorities, subservient to Washington as they are, tolerate the obvious signal that the population lacks any confidence whatsoever in the government?

If the protests last, especially if they grow and don’t decline, the authorities will infiltrate the protestors with police provocateurs who will fire on the police. This will be the excuse to shoot down the protestors and to arrest the survivors as “terrorists” or “domestic extremists” and to send them to the $385 million dollar camps built under US government contract by Cheney’s Halliburton.

The Amerikan Police State will have taken its next step into the Amerikan Concentration Camp State.

Meanwhile, lost in their oblivion, conservatives will continue to bemoan the ruination of the country by homosexual marriage, abortion, and “the liberal media.” Liberal organizations committed to civil liberty, such as the ACLU, will continue to rank a woman’s right to an abortion with defense of the US Constitution. Amnesty International will assist Washington in demonizing its next target for military attack while turning a blind eye to the war crimes of President Obama.

When we consider what Israel has got away with, being as it is under Washington’s bought protection–the war crimes, the murders of children, the eviction in total disregard of international law of Palestinians from their ancestral homes, the bulldozing of their houses and uprooting of their olive groves in order to move in fanatical “settlers,” the murderous invasions of Lebanon and Gaza, the wholesale slaughter of civilians–we can only conclude that Washington, Israel’s enabler, can get away with far more.

In the few opening years of the 21st century, Washington has destroyed the US Constitution, the separation of powers, international law, the accountability of government, and has sacrificed every moral principle to achieving hegemony over the world. This ambitious agenda is being attempted while simultaneously Washington removed all regulation over Wall Street, the home of massive greed, permitting Wall Street’s short-term horizon to wreck the US economy, thus destroying the economic basis for Washington’s assault on the world.

Will the US collapse in economic chaos before it rules the world?

Dr. Paul Craig Roberts was appointed by President Reagan Assistant Secretary of the U.S. Treasury and confirmed by the US Senate. He was Associate Editor and columnist with the Wall Street Journal, and he served on the personal staffs of Representative Jack Kemp and Senator Orrin Hatch. He was staff associate of the House Defense Appropriations Subcommittee, staff associate of the Joint Economic Committee of Congress, and Chief Economist, Republican Staff, House Budget Committee. He wrote the Kemp-Roth tax rate reduction bill, and was a leader in the supply-side revolution. He was professor of economics in six universities, and is the author of numerous books and scholarly contributions. He has testified before committees of Congress on 30 occasions. Source

The Son of Africa Claims a Continent’s Crown Jewels

By John Pilger

October 19, 2011

On 14 October, President Barack Obama announced he was sending United States special forces troops to Uganda to join the civil war there. In the next few months, US combat troops will be sent to South Sudan, Congo and Central African Republic. They will only “engage” for “self-defence”, says Obama, satirically. With Libya secured, an American invasion of the African continent is under way.

Obama’s decision is described in the press as “highly unusual” and “surprising”, even “weird”. It is none of these things. It is the logic of American foreign policy since 1945. Take Vietnam. The priority was to halt the influence of China, an imperial rival, and “protect” Indonesia, which President Nixon called “the region’s richest hoard of natural resources …the greatest prize”. Vietnam merely got in the way; and the slaughter of more than three million Vietnamese and the devastation and poisoning of their land was the price of America achieving its goal. Like all America’s subsequent invasions, a trail of blood from Latin America to Afghanistan and Iraq, the rationale was usually “self defence” or “humanitarian”, words long emptied of their dictionary meaning.
In Africa, says Obama, the “humanitarian mission” is to assist the government of Uganda defeat the Lord’s resistance Army (LRA), which “has murdered, raped and kidnapped tens of thousands of men, women and children in central Africa”. This is an accurate description of the LRA, evoking multiple atrocities administered by the United States, such as the bloodbath in the 1960s following the CIA-arranged murder of Patrice Lumumba, the Congolese independence leader and first legally elected prime minister, and the CIA coup that installed Mobutu Sese Seko, regarded as Africa’s most venal tyrant.

Obama’s other justification also invites satire. This is the “national security of the United States”. The LRA has been doing its nasty work for 24 years, of minimal interest to the United States. Today, it has few than 400 fighters and has never been weaker. However, US “national security” usually means buying a corrupt and thuggish regime that has something Washington wants. Uganda’s “president-for-life” Yoweri Museveni already receives the larger part of $45 million in US military “aid” – including Obama’s favourite drones. This is his bribe to fight a proxy war against America’s latest phantom Islamic enemy, the rag-tag al Shabaab group based in Somalia. The RTA will play a public relations role, distracting western journalists with its perennial horror stories.

However, the main reason the US is invading Africa is no different from that which ignited the Vietnam war. It is China. In the world of self-serving, institutionalised paranoia that justifies what General David Petraeus, the former US commander and now CIA director, implies is a state of perpetual war, China is replacing al-Qaeda as the official American “threat”. When I interviewed Bryan Whitman, an assistant secretary of defence at the Pentagon last year, I asked him to describe the current danger to America. Struggling visibly, he repeated, “Asymmetric threats … asymmetric threats”. These justify the money-laundering state-sponsored arms conglomerates and the biggest military and war budget in history. With Osama bin Laden airbrushed, China takes the mantle.

Africa is China’s success story. Where the Americans bring drones and destabilisation, the Chinese bring roads, bridges and dams. What they want is resources, especially fossil fuels. With Africa’s greatest oil reserves, Libya under Muammar Gaddafi was one of China’s most important sources of fuel. When the civil war broke out and Nato backed the “rebels” with a fabricated story about Gaddafi planning “genocide” in Benghazi, China evacuated its 30,000 workers in Libya. The subsequent UN security council resolution that allowed the west’s “humanitarian intervention” was explained succinctly in a proposal to the French government by the “rebel” National Transitional Council, disclosed last month in the newspaper Liberation, in which France was offered 35 per cent of Libya’s gross national oil production “in exchange” (the term used) for “total and permanent” French support for the NTC. Running up the Stars and Stripes in “liberated” Tripoli last month, US ambassador Gene Cretz blurted out: “We know that oil is the jewel in the crown of Libyan natural resources!”

The de facto conquest of Libya by the US and its imperial partners heralds a modern version of the “scramble for Africa” at the end of the 19th century.
Like the “victory” in Iraq, journalists have played a critical role in dividing Libyans into worthy and unworthy victims. A recent Guardian front page carried a photograph of a terrified “pro-Gaddafi” fighter and his wild-eyed captors who, says the caption, “celebrate”. According to General Petraeus, there is now a war “of perception … conducted continuously through the news media”.

For more than a decade the US has tried to establish a command on the continent of Africa, AFRICOM, but has been rebuffed by governments, fearful of the regional tensions this would cause. Libya, and now Uganda, South Sudan and Congo, provide the main chance. As WikiLeaks cables and the US National Strategy for Counter-terrorism reveal, American plans for Africa are part of a global design in which 60,000 special forces, including death squads, already operate in 75 countries, soon to be 120. As Dick Cheney pointed out in his 1990s “defence strategy” plan, America simply wishes to rule the world.

That this is now the gift of Barack Obama, the “Son of Africa”, is supremely ironic. Or is it? As Frantz Fanon explained in Black Skin, White Masks, what matters is not so much the colour of your skin as the power you serve and the millions you betray. Source

Transitional leader declares Libya ‘liberated’

Oct. 23, 2011

BENGHAZI, Libya — Libya’s transitional leader has declared liberation of the country, three days after the death of its leader of four decades, Moammar Gadhafi.

Mustafa Abdul-Jalil also told thousands of supporters at a ceremony on Sunday that Islamic Sharia law would be the “basic source” of legislation in the country and that existing laws that contradict the teachings of Islam would be nullified. In an address that set an Islamist tone for post-Gadhafi Libya, he said new banks would be set up to follow the Islamic banking system, which bans charging interest.

“This revolution was looked after by God to achieve victory,” he told the crowd. Source

ATHENS, Greece — Hundreds of rioting youths smashed and looted stores in central Athens on Wednesday during a big anti-government rally against painful new austerity measures that erupted into violence.

Outside parliament, demonstrators hurled chunks of marble and gasoline bombs at riot police, who responded with tear gas and stun grenades. Police said at least 14 officers were hospitalized with injuries. At least three journalists covering the demonstrations sustained minor injuries.

The violence spread across the city centre, as at least 100,000 people marched through the Greek capital on the first day of a two-day general strike that unions described as the largest protest in years.

Police and rioters held running battles through the narrow streets of central Athens, as thick black smoke billowed from burning trash and bus-stops.

Wednesday’s strike, which grounded flights, disrupted public transport and shut down shops and schools, came before a parliamentary vote late Thursday on new tax increases and spending cuts.

International creditors have demanded the reforms before they give Greece its next infusion of cash. Greece says it will run out of money in a month without the C8 billion ($11 billion) bailout money from its partners that use the euro and the International Monetary Fund.

Most of the protesters who converged in central Athens marched peacefully, but crowds outside of parliament clashed with police who tried to disperse them with repeated rounds of tear gas. A gasoline bomb set fire to a presidential guard sentry post at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier outside Parliament, while running clashes broke out in several side streets near the legislature and the capital’s main Syntagma Square.

Nearby, groups of hooded, masked protesters tore chunks of marble off building fronts with hammers and crowbars and smashed windows and bank signs. Scuffles also broke out among rioters and demonstrators trying to prevent youths from destroying storefronts and banks along the march route.

Vendors sold swimming goggles to rioters, who used them to ward off the tear gas.

Thousands of people watched the skirmishes, some standing on kiosk roofs to get a better view. Trash was strewn around the streets, and some protesters set clumps of it on fire.

In Greece’s second city of Thessaloniki, protesters smashed the facades of about 10 shops that defied the strike and remained open, as well as five banks and cash machines. Police fired tear gas and threw stun grenades.

All sectors — from dentists, hospital doctors and lawyers to shop owners, tax office workers, pharmacists, teachers and dock workers — walked off the job before a parliamentary vote Thursday on new austerity measures which include new taxes and the suspension of tens of thousands of civil servants.

Flights were grounded in the morning but some resumed at noon after air traffic controllers scaled back their strike plan from 48 hours to 12. Dozens of domestic and international flights were still cancelled. Ferries remained tied up in port, while public transport workers staged work stoppages but kept buses, trolleys and the Athens subway system running to help protesters.

In Parliament, Finance Minister Evangelos Venizelos told lawmakers that Greeks had no choice but to accept the hardship.

“We have to explain to all these indignant people who see their lives changing that what the country is experiencing is not the worst stage of the crisis,” he said. “It is an anguished and necessary effort to avoid the ultimate, deepest and harshest level of the crisis. The difference between a difficult situation and a catastrophe is immense.”

About 3,000 police deployed in central Athens, shutting down two subway stations near parliament as protest marches began. Protesters banged drums and chanted slogans against the government and Greece’s international creditors who have pressured the country to push through rounds of tax hikes and spending cuts.

“We just can’t take it any more. There is desperation, anger and bitterness,” said Nikos Anastasopoulos, head of a workers’ union for an Athens municipality.

Other municipal workers said they had no option but to take to the streets.

Demonstrations during a similar 48-hour strike in June left the centre of Athens convulsed by violence as rioters clashed with police on both days while deputies voted on another austerity package inside Parliament.

Piles of garbage festered on Athens street corners despite Tuesday’s government order to garbage crews to end their 17-day strike. Earlier in the week, private crews removed some trash from along the planned demonstration routes, but mounds remained on side streets, along some of the march routes and in city neighbourhoods.

Protesting civil servants have also staged rounds of sit-ins at government buildings, with some, including the Finance Ministry, under occupation for days.

Most stores in the city centre, including bakeries and kiosks were shut Wednesday. Several shop owners said they had received threats that their stores would be smashed if they attempted to open.

The measures to be voted on come after more than a year and a half of repeated spending cuts and tax increases. They include new tax hikes, further pension and salary cuts, the suspension on reduced pay of 30,000 public servants and the suspension of collective labour contracts.

A communist party-backed union has vowed to encircle Parliament Thursday in an attempt to prevent deputies from entering the building for the vote.

The reforms have been so unpopular that even some lawmakers from the governing Socialists have indicated they might vote against them.

Meanwhile, European countries are trying to work out a broad solution to the continent’s deepening debt crisis, before a weekend summit in Brussels. It became clear earlier this year that the initial bailout for Greece was not working as well as had been hoped, and European leaders agreed on a second, C109 billion ($151 billion) bailout. But key details of that rescue fund, including the participation of the private sector, remain to be worked out. Source

EU raids banks amid suspicions they colluded

Oct. 19, 2011

BRUSSELS, Belgium — The European Union’s competition watchdog said Wednesday it conducted unannounced inspections at several banks amid suspicions they may have colluded to manipulate euro interest rate derivatives.

The European Commission said it is looking into a possible cartel by companies active in the sector of derivatives linked to the Euro Interbank Offered Rate — a key interest-rate benchmark.

The Commission said the raids started on Tuesday, but didn’t name the firms whose premises it inspected.

There are trillions of euros in derivatives whose value is based on developments in the Euribor and they make up a significant slice of the profitable business of derivatives trading, which has grown exponentially in recent years.

The Euribor is set by a group of 44 banks and is based on the interest rates they charge for lending to other financial institutions.

Inspections, during which investigators collect documents that could aid their case, are an early step in EU competition probes and happen before the Commission starts an in-depth investigation into suspected cartels and other violations of EU competition law.

The inspections are another sign that competition watchdogs are stepping up their scrutiny of the financial sector as a result of the 2008 credit crunch and the European debt crisis.

Press reports earlier this year said that the U.S. Justice Department and Securities and Exchange Commission were looking into suspected manipulation of the London Interbank Offered Rate, which is a benchmark rate similar to the Euribor but used much more widely.

Earlier this year, the European Commission also opened an investigation into practices of some of the world’s largest banks in the market for credit default swaps, derivatives that act as a sort of insurance against default.Source

The US should be investigating their own banks including the Federal Reserve.

They lead to the downfall of Greece.

The International Monetary Fund is basically run by the US and other rich countries. It is a horrid creature that should be eliminated as should the World Bank. Both are nothing more then a dictatorship that imposed massive hardship on countries. The IMF Can Only Bring Misery.

For six decades, the World Bank and IMF have imposed policies, programs, and projects that:

Decimate women’s rights and devastate their lives, their families, and their communities;

If the US can’t get you with the IMF, World Bank or Free Trade Agreements — they send in the CIA.

One way or the other they will make your lives miserable and even kill you to get what they want. They even start wars to get what they want.

One has to wonder how many problems are still created by the CIA in other countries. They can cause financial chaos to other countries as well. They manipulate elections in other countries and invent anything to overturn governments they do not like.

One has to wonder if those Masked folks in Greece that stir up violence, may be associated with the CIA. The US does not like Socialism. That is one of their tactics they use often.

This fellow has a number of Videos that can be watched I recommend them all so you can get some insight into what the CIA is really like. They have not changed over the years only now everything they do is kept secret and always chalked up to National Security so no one can find out what they are up to. Do take the time to watch as many of the Video with John in them. Then maybe you will understand just how the US destroys other countries.

John Stockwell – CIA’s War on Humans

Feb 13, 2008

John R. Stockwell is a former CIA officer who became a critic of United States government policies after serving in the Agency for thirteen years serving seven tours of duty. After managing U.S. involvement in the Angolan Civil War as Chief of the Angola Task Force during its 1975 covert operations, he resigned and wrote In Search of Enemies, a book which remains the only detailed, insider’s account of a major CIA “covert action.”

So look at the world around us today and you will notice nothing has changed only gotten worse and the US is still starting wars. They still interfere with other Governments. They still topple Governments they don’t like. Now they have more weapons like the IMF, World Bank, Free Trade, WTO etc.

I could bet a few dollars they have everything to do with the problems in Greece and many other EU countries deep in debt. Wars are also driving countries deep in debt.

Greek lawmakers vote in favour of new austerity bill

Oct. 20 2011

ATHENS, Greece — Greek lawmakers have passed a deeply resented austerity bill that has led to violent protests on the streets of Athens, despite some dissent from one Socialist lawmaker.

The new measures include pay and staff cuts in the civil service as well as pension cuts and tax hikes for all Greeks. The bill passed by majority vote in the 300-member parliament.

Former Labor Minister Louka Katseli voted against one article that scales back collective labour bargaining rights. She voted in favour of the overall bill, but Prime Minister George Papandreou expelled her from the party’s parliamentary group. The move whittles down his parliamentary majority to 153.

The vote came after violent demonstrations that left one person dead and 74 injured. Source

Why & how is it that international laws & international bodies & international public figures paid to maintain peaceful co-existence keep silent while even endorsing repeated NATO bombings that have killed thousands of innocent men, women & children & destroyed public & private property in a show of supremacy & arrogance over the nations they have targeted? NATO war crimes extend from Yugoslavia, to Iraq, to Afghanistan & now Libya. Why are international laws being manipulated to pressurize nations politically less powerful yet bountiful in natural resources or placed in influential economic routes? This simply explains why nations are invaded in the present context & how NATO has become above the law.

Were there terrorists in power plants, electricity grids, water supply networks? Were there terrorists among shops, universities & schools, stores, hospitals, farms & markets? These have been key targets of NATO in its endless bombing campaigns which totally violate its own Charter & the UN Charter. So if Justice is quiet what is the use of the International Criminal Court at The Hague? If the ICC is a tool, a manipulative organism that twists legal principles it is time the rest of the world knew about these duplicities, ambiguities & double standards & demand that it either stops the double standards or these members vote for another alternative.

NATO in Yugoslavia

The International War Crimes Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia formed in 1993 was only a means to justify Western intervention in the Balkans. It has no links to the International Court of Justice based in The Hague. The Tribunal is made up of US influenced appointees so will NATO crimes in Kosovo be investigated? Was it a surprise when the Tribunal branded President Milosevic a war criminal & the US is against the establishment of any international court that can charge US military & political personnel with war crimes?

What NATO is accused of is violating the UN Charter– it is a violation to attack a sovereign nation that was innocent of any aggression. NATO’s Charter Article 1 & 7 has also been violated – NATO is supposed to function as a “DEFENSIVE organization, & only committed to force if ONE or MORE of its members are attacked! NATO Treaty in fact recognizes the UN Security Council to maintain international peace & security. NATO’s violation of the Hague Convention Article 22 & 23, Geneva Convention Article 19, Nuremberg Principle VI a,b,c & the US Constitution Article 1 Section 8, Clause II is for “killing & injuring a defenseless population through Yugoslavia”.

The usual excuse is given as “humanitarian” intervention & that was what the Clinton administration used, incidentally Mussolini used it to invade Ethiopia to save them from slavery & Hitler used it to occupy Sudetenland to save Germans.

If the US used the Nuremberg principles to charge Germany for “starting an unprovoked war” shouldn’t the US be charged on similar grounds?

On 22 September, 2000 in the District Court of Belgrade, the President of the Court handed down guilty verdicts against government leaders of NATO countries for “war crimes”. These defendants were Bill Clinton, Tony Blair, Jacques Chirac, Gerhard Schroeder, Robin Cook, George Robertson, William Cohen, Hubert Vedrine, Alain Richard, Gerhard Schroeder, Joschka Fischer, Rudolf Scharping, Javier Solana and Wesley Clark. The sentence was for 20 years in a Yugoslav prison & thus arrest warrants were issued upon all charging each for crimes against humanity & breaches of international law, inciting an aggressive war, war crimes against civilians, use of weapons banned under international law, violating Yugoslavia’s territorial sovereignty & attempting to murder Slobodan Milosevic, President of Yugoslavia between March 24 & June 10, 1999.

Former US President Bill Clinton was sent a verdict on April 18th, 2001 sentencing him in absentia to 20 years in prison for “crimes against civilians”.

The entire West is not as inhuman as we think. The Commission of Inquiry of the International Action Coalition charged in 1999 Bill Clinton, Madeleine Albright, William Cohen for violating the Geneva Convention, the UN Charter, the Nuremberg Principles, Helsinki Accords & the US Constitution. The 19 charges included starting a war, deliberate targeting of civilians infrastructure & violating & destroying peacemaking role of the UN. One of the main arguments was that despite the Yugoslav parliament agreeing to NATOs demand of autonomy & armed UN peacekeepers in Kosovo why it was bombed! Instead of the mass graves that was similar to the WMD in Iraq, there were perhaps just 200 dead persons – the 100,000 dead Albanians that NATO & US were promoting as grounds to attack was just a lie.

NATOs air strikes in Serbia killed over 2000 civilians & wounded more than 7500. NATO has owned up to only 460 civilian deaths. The dead included farmers, city dwellers, reporters, diplomats, people traveling in public transport, patients in hospitals, the elderly & even children. That is the human factor – what about the enormous damages to the environment as a result of these NATO bombings – poisoning water supplies, loss of electricity that affects hospitals & other emergency requirements? There is evidence that some Spanish pilots refused to drop bombs on non-military targets.

Another accusation against NATO was the bombing of all bridges across the international waterway through Eastern Europe – the River Danube. Some of these bridges were bombed while civilians were on them. All that NATO leaders said were that the incidents were “accidents”. This clearly violates the Protocol Additional to the Geneva Conventions of 12th August 1949 & the Protection of Victims of International Armed Conflicts (Protocol 1) – 8th June 1977.

NATO strategy was to destroy the whole infrastructure of Yugoslavia – that was why it targeted public services, rail & road networks, waterways. The objective was always to detach Kosovo.

If one were to read the book (The White Book) published by the Yugoslav Ministry of Foreign Affairs, NATO crimes in Yugoslavia, the book will reveal the damage caused by NATO bombings & lists 400 civilian deaths & over 40 incidents involving civilian fatalities.

If NATOs actions were illegal under its own treaty, in particular since aggressive military action was taken without UN mandate the killings that ensued were war crimes.

What is clear is that the US & UK Governments deliberately waged war against Yugoslavia by building a propaganda campaign that would be internationally welcomed & accepted by their countrymen.

On 5th January 2000, Yugoslav Government stepped up pressure to indict NATO country leaders – US President Bill Clinton & UK Prime Minister Tony Blair for crimes against humanity in Yugoslavia in 1999. This followed a submission for instigating proceeds before the International Court of Justice in April 29, 1999 & ICC setting a deadline for legal action on 30th June 1999 & Yugoslavia meeting that deadline on 5th January 2000. “Yugoslavia demands that the Court declare these countries responsible for the violation of major international obligations, which ban the implementation of force against countries, interference into their internal affairs or the violation of their sovereignty, as well as other international obligations. The indictment also included the demand for confirming the responsibility of these countries for their failure to prevent the genocide against the Serb people and other non-Albanians in Kosovo and Metohija, in which way they violated the obligations stemming from U.N. Security Council Resolution 1244 and the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of Genocide Crimes . . . Yugoslavia is also demanding that the Court instruct all countries, which are being sued to pay compensation for all the damages inflicted”.

NATO war crimes in Iraq

The Geneva Conventions are clear “Civilians shall not be the object of attack.” According to the UN Security Council resolution, military forces were tasked with expelling Iraqi forces that invaded Kuwait. That task involved 88,000 tons of bombs that killed civilians & killed more civilians through the destruction of power grids, food, water treatment, sewage systems. US soldiers used napalm to incinerate entrenched Iraqi soldiers. US soldiers dropped fuel-air explosives, cluster bombs that use razor-sharp fragments to shred people. Depleted uranium were used to penetrate tanks causing long term health hazards, the economic embargoes have killed as many as 1million Iraqis.

Why did the US & its allies deliberately destroy Iraq’s water supply & not repair it? Why did these western nations repeatedly bomb infrastructures for flood control, municipal & industrial water storage, communication towers, irrigation & hydroelectric power? (8 multi purpose dams, 7 major pumping stations, 31 municipal water & sewage facilities were destroyed). These have nothing to do with Saddam or his supporters – these are services needed for the people of Iraq.

They were bombed to create – waterborne diseases which have killed thousands of Iraqi civilians & the bombs & weapons used have caused radiation poisoning as a result of depleted uranium shells.

Article 54 of the Geneva Convention states “it is prohibited to attack, destroy or render useless objects indispensable to the survival of the civilian population” – including foodstuff, livestock & drinking water supplies & irrigation works”.

Why were these acts not treated as war crimes under the Geneva Convention & does this not constitute genocide by US & allies?

NATO war crimes in Afghanistan

If NATO has committed war crimes in Iraq & Yugoslavia, should we be surprised to read of NATO war crimes in Afghanistan? Indiscriminate bombings killing unarmed civilians have only been answered with an “apology” by NATO. The presence of US & NATO troops in Afghanistan was similar to that which took place in Yugoslavia – without any proof a country has been taken over. Indiscriminate bombings mean rebuilding projects being handed over to profit-driven private corporations. The irony is that the Afghan government are compromising the welfare of its own citizens for its own financial benefits. This has caused a rise in Pashtun nationalism & indirect support for the Taliban. Thus it has been easy to pass blame for NATO killings on the Taliban while civilian deaths keep piling, infrastructure continues to be bombed & anarchy prevails throughout Afghanistan.

NATO in Libya

NATO’s Libya operation followed the UNSC Resolution which NATO has violated seen through its presence on ground, bombing of civilian structures. Greatest violation is by NATO taking sides which is illegal, illegal too is the murder or attempt to murder government officials with no formal declaration of war. NATO is also using cluster bombs & depleted uranium which is also illegal. NATOs violations in Libya are many & what we would like to know is why is the ICC silent?

In the case of Libya, the ICC has no jurisdiction for Libya never ratified the Rome Treaty nor has the US. However, under international laws a Head of State has immunity. So if ICC does not question the US & its crimes against humanity why should ICC question Libya when the UN Security Council cannot refer to the ICC according to its Statute? ICC has been considering action against Georgia since 2008, against Guinea since 2009 & against Colombia since 2006 but the ICC took just 3 days to find Libya guilty.

The NATO countries participating in air strikes in Libya include France, UK, US, Canada, Denmark, Belgium, Netherlands & Italy. What excuse does NATO have for bombing a Downs Syndrome School, the University of Tripoli, the man-made waterway irrigation system which supplies most Libyans with drinking water, bombing a hospital killing over 50 many of whom were children, bombing villages killing civilian population – is this not genocide & can the ICC continue to watch doing nothing?

The sinister campaign to take over Libya was by first projecting to Gaddafi that the US “deeply valued the relationship between the United States & Libya” (2009) This was because British Petroleum, Exxon Mobil, Halliburton, Chevron, Conoco, Marathon Oil & industrial giants like Raytheon, Northrop Grumman, Dow Chemical & Fluor signed investments & sales deals with Libya. The US State Dept awarded a $1.5m grant to train Libyan civilian & government security forces in 2009. Many of these “trainees” are now leading the NATO-backed “rebel forces”.

Thus, the pretence of being a “friend” to Gaddafi by the US since 2009 was to get Gaddafi to agree to allow foreign presence in Libya.

For months now NATO has been pounding Libya. Over 30,000 air & missile assaults on mostly civilian infrastructure was expected so too was the “rebel uprising” for they had been already trained to rise against Gaddafi. NATO also bombed Libyan airports, ships, energy depots, ports & highways, warehouses, hospitals, waterplants & civilian homes. NATO was able to garner diplomatic support inclusive of the Arab League, NATO took services of hired mercenaries in Qatar. Libyan assets were frozen amounting billions of dollars. Economic sanctions were imposed by NATO cutting off Libya’s income from oil sales.

International media also controlled by western imperialists were relaying images that portrayed rebels waving rifles & shouting against Gaddafi. These rebels entered towns that had been devastated by NATO air attacks! What these rebels did was to rob homes, banks & destroy public institutions on the instructions of NATO. Going against Gaddafi does not equate to ruining infrastructure & destroying property that is used by one’s own people!

NATO wanted Libya to be destroyed. Like NATO destroyed Yugoslavia & Iraq. NATO wanted to ensure Libya had to be “reconstructed” because all these contracts would eventually go to profit-making western companies!

Incidentally, Libya is a country that had boasted the highest per capita income & standard of living in Africa.

What took place in Libya is a message from the imperialists for other nations in North Africa, Asia & Latin America. US-NATO are already engaged in colonial wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen & Somalia. What about the fall of Mubarak of Egypt & Ben Ali in Tunisia while uprisings in Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Morocco, Algeria were all associated with movements demanding end to EU-US & Israeli domination of the region & would have caught their intelligence by surprise.

NATO provided the money to silence the “people’s march to democracy” & the situation in Egypt is far worse than during Mubaraks reign! In Bahrain the West called for “reform” while continuing to arm the Bahraini royal family as seen in the NATO backed Saudi invasion of Bahrain to support the royal dictatorship. In Yemen, the West continued to support the Ali Saleh regime. Nevertheless, NATO is apparently providing support to Islamic fundamentalists in a move to overthrow Bashar Al-Assad.

What did Libya do to anger the West? Did the West not like its pursuance of pro-African agenda which had funded an independent regional bank & communications system designed to bypass IMF & World Bank control?

What has ensued is that like in Iraq & Afghanistan there is likely to be a dominating US-NATO present that is looking towards a military offensive in Iran & Syria. Sub-Saharan Africa may like to remember Gaddafi’s generous aid, grants & loans that helped these nations from IMF, World Bank. Who will remember Gaddafi’s development programs, construction projects that offered many jobs to sub-Saharan African immigrant workers. Despite all these maneuvers, China is still bracing ahead over its western counterparts.

July 22, 2011 is the date when NATO hit the Libyan water supply pipeline. Days later NATO hit the pipeline factory producing pipes to repair it. Both incidents could not have been accidents. NATO went on to target civilian water supply network that supplied water to 70% of Libyan population. Nevertheless, the truth will emerge just like Libya is now revealing how it funded French President Sarkozy’s election campaign & the numerous secret meetings Tony Blair held with Gaddafi & there must surely be more in the Pandora’s box which is why the West is in a haste to bump of Gaddafi as they did to Osama & Saddam – all previous friends of the West.

It is certainly time that UN member states stood up against aggression by Western neo-imperialism. Member states must demand a probe into all the atrocities by NATO & demand that these nations steering NATO be charged with war crimes. Russia & China need to champion this cause.

With only 28 nations making up the NATO alliance, the UN has 53 African member nations & 48 Middle-East & Asian nations & 12 nations in South America. It is opportune for these non-NATO members to make a voice within the UN & demand that NATO be investigated for all of its war crimes & be charged for every war crime committed. Source

Disenchanted citizens promise to fill the streets of financial districts en masse this weekend as they grow weary of bailing out banks. EurActiv Greece contributed to this article.

While people in the US, the UK, and many European countries including Belgium, are mobilising for mass street protests in their cities this Saturday, people in the capital of the EU will put on a comparatively smaller show.

500 protesters expected in Brussels

In comparison to the 4,000 people expected to arrive at the London Stock Exchange, just over 500 people are expected to arrive at Rue Wiertz outside the European Parliament in Brussels.

Belgium has been recently hard hit by financial scandal after it emerged that the CEO of the nationalised Dexia bank has been living at a Brussels hotel three days a week for the past three years.

The bank downplayed Pierre Mariani’s actions, saying he paid for the room by himself. Moreover, figures in the Belgian press indicate that the Dexia bailout will cost €5,000 per taxpayer.

Trade unionists in Brussels claim they have tried to get in touch with the Occupy Brussels movement to show their support but have not had any luck finding a spokesperson.

Patricia Grillo, a spokesperson from the European Trade Union Confederation said there was “no boss, between brackets” because the protestors probably do not want to align themselves with any group or political party to get more people involved.

Asked about the significance of the protests, a spokesperson for the European Commission answered: “How does that concern us?”

The lack of support from EU policymakers has upset followers of the movement who say it highlights why people feel compelled to make themselves heard on the street.

“That really pinpoints why there is such an explosion of activity, and that is the idea that people in places of influence are not worried about what citizens think,” Naomi Colvin, a supporter of Occupy the London Stock Exchange, the UK-arm of the protest, told EurActiv.

The predicted turnout figures in Europe are paltry compared to the number of participants in the US. An umbrella group for the entire movement stateside, Occupy Together, has a total 99,260 followers.

In the last few days, US news media report that the protests have escalated and in some parts, grown personal. Yesterday, thousands of protestors targeted the houses of several billionaires on the Upper East Side of New York.

Occupy LSX

The London protests, dubbed Occupy LSX, are unlikely to target individuals’ homes, says Colvin, as this has not been agreed at the movement’s General Assembly which has been planning the march.

“It is a bad idea to personalise this. That is a misrepresentation of what we are talking about. We are talking about a systemic problem,” Colvin said.

Colvin explained that the movement had many goals, among which, that action is taken against investment banks and credit rating agencies who allowed sub-prime mortgages to be wrapped up in AAA-rated Credit Default Swaps, swelling a bubble of toxic assets.

Observers lament that the man on the street does not know what they are protesting about but Colvin insists that laymen do understand the actions taken by banks which caused the crisis.

“There is a real danger in assuming that this is too complex for people to understand. It’s like selling medicines that were not labelled properly. Would we want that to happen?” she said.

Prosecuting bankers?

Since the crisis not a single person or institution has been either indicted or convicted for misleading clients on CDS. Financial analysts in the US believe that banks like Goldman Sachs, which have been selling CDS linked to sub-prime, won’t face criminal prosecution related to these sales because such a move could threaten the financial system.

“The real question is not whether some people are put in prison but whether democracy is restored and the financial sector serves the real economy again. They should be taxed like any other economic sector and become truly accountable to the people,” Sven Giegold, a German Green told EurActiv. The German Greens have called on their electorate to participate in Saturday’s protests.

After the protest, some countries in Europe will enter a phase of general strikes. Colvin hopes a strike in the UK on 6th November will underline the movement’s motives.

This week Greece has been inundated with protests against further austerity measures involving wage and pension cuts and 30,000 planned redundancies.

According to EurActiv Greece, ongoing protests are bringing Athens to a standstill, literally, as a 10-day strike by Greek Petroleum prevented drivers from getting fuel yesterday. Buses, trams and metros stopped purely in protest at the cuts.

These strikes will culminate in a general strike planned for 19 October with many banks, petrol stations, public servants (from municipal administrations to government departments), teachers and students threatening to participate.

Public Transport halted as Greek strikes spread

ATHENS — Unions and protesters shut down the Acropolis, halted public transport and occupied government buildings on Thursday, intensifying their confrontation with the Greek government as it scrambles to push more painful cuts through parliament.Greece’s largest labour union, the GSEE, sided with protesting public servants and announced plans to strike on Oct. 19 and 20, in opposition to the Socialist government’s “ineffective and catastrophic policies,” it said.Stores and even farmers’ markets in Athens are also due to close on the first day of the strike.Public servants are the main targets of new austerity measures, slated for parliamentary approval Oct. 20, that include across-the-board salary cuts, and the suspension of 30,000 workers on the state payroll with reduced salaries.Pensioners will also see more cuts, and salary earners will pay higher taxes, while parliament has already approved an emergency property tax due to be levies starting this month through electricity bills.

“The recession is deepening, unemployment has rocketed to appalling heights, the economy is collapsing, the living standards of our people has been pushed back decades back,” the civil servants’ union ADEDY said. “Employees and society are being driven to despair as the (government) pursues its policies that are creating the economic deadlock.”

The barrage of punishing reforms comes after Greece acknowledged it would miss its deficit-cutting targets in 2011 and promised international debt inspectors to take further corrective action in 2012.

The country is surviving on C110 billion ($151 billion) in rescue loans from other eurozone members and the International Monetary Fund, and would default next month unless it receives the next bailout payment of C8 billion ($11 billion) to be considered for approval next week.

Matthias Mors, a European Commission debt inspector, said in a newspaper interview published Thursday that they were aware of the difficulties the government faced in imposing so many reforms in such a short space of time.

“But I would say that we are at a critical moment, where Greece has to convince the international community and the other euro area members that it is willing and able to reach the objectives it has committed itself to,” the daily Kathimerini quoted him as saying.

Mors said Greece needed to overhaul its bloated public sector, but that it had agreed with the government that this should be done over the course of five years.

“We are not saying that there should be large-scale dismissals,” he said.

Elsewhere, protesting Culture Ministry employees sealed the entrance to the Acropolis and other ancient sites and museums, while protesting power workers occupied administrative offices of the Public Power Corporation to try and disrupt the distribution of property tax notices.

And local government workers stormed a nationwide meeting of mayors, scuffling with organizers. Their protest has halted garbage collection for 12 days in the Greek capital — causing piles of trash to build up on street corners.

State television and radio journalists, lawyers, hospital doctors, teachers, customs and tax officers, seamen and municipal workers have also either walked off the job or are planning strikes in the coming days. Taxi drivers are expected to stay off the streets Friday during the second day of the public transport strike, leaving private cars as the only transport in Athens. Source

Hit the pocket books and the profiteers might listen.

Greece really knows how to protest. The people in Greece stand together, which is what makes their protests more effective then some others around the world. They also do not give up.

They are not about to loss their pension, jobs, or social services.

The rest of the world could use their ideas in their own protests. United We Stand, divided we fall.

We, all around the world are fighting for the same things.

Greeks are definitely an inspiration to the rest of the world. The greedy bankers and bad corporations, helped put them in the position they are in as well as the IMF and probably Free Trade.

Free Trade has caused more poverty and job losses then any other agreements ever implemented around the world. Which leads back the the US and so do the bad bankers as well.

These protesters hot the homes of the profiteers.

Protesters who say the state’s tax on millionaires should not expire marched on the Upper East Side apartments of five of the city’s richest men Tuesday.

They carried giant checks for $5 billion – how much they say the state will lose when the tax dies in December – made out to “the top 1%” and tried to give them to each tycoon.

By Madison RuppertThe mainstream media is already engaging in widespread damage control in an attempt to mitigate the fallout of the reality of the situation in Libya and the withering NATO-sponsored narrative of post-Gaddafi Libya.They are called “Gaddafi loyalists”, “Sub-Saharan mercenaries” and other phrases all pointing to the unfortunate reality that every single black person is now considered by the rebels to be a mercenary hired by Gaddafi.The Libyan rebels and those carrying water for them in the Western media are now attempting to conceal the fact that they are now committing crimes against humanity in the active targeting of innocent black Libyans.Some call the attacks “reprisals” or “revenge” but in reality they are hateful murders carried out by the al Qaeda-affiliated, Western backed and trained rebels.These killings are irrefutably tied to the wildly racist and wholly unfounded claims that Gaddafi hired Sub-Saharan African mercenaries to murder his own people during the uprising.Unfortunately for the painfully ignorant rebels and their Western compatriots, this is simply not true and has never been verified in any way.

As I covered in my article about the “waves of disinformation” emanating out of Libya, even the New York Times now is forced to admit that there is no substantiation for the claims whatsoever.The rebels have alleged that they captured these so-called mercenaries but quite conveniently they have never been able to show a single international journalist these captured fighters.Why? It is pretty simple: there are no black mercenaries that were being used to kill Libyans. In fact, there have been no verified instances of Gaddafi ordering the targeting of peaceful civilians in Libya.This aspect of the false narrative was debunked so long ago that it seems most of the mainstream media has dispensed with it altogether.However, the representatives of the undemocratic, racist (notice there are no black Libyan rebel leaders, interesting, isn’t it?) and thoroughly corrupt National Transitional Council continue to peddle these tired lies.I was watching the Qatari propaganda outlet Al Jazeera earlier today and I witnessed a fascinating exchange between a homogenous panel of “experts” discussing the future of Libya and the relations with the African Union.One member of the panel was a spokesman for the illegitimate Libyan NTC. This individual parroted every single thoroughly vetted and discredited rebel claim that they have been making since the first days of the conflict.

These included “mass rape”, enormous numbers of civilians allegedly killed by Gaddafi and the hiring of Sub-Saharan mercenaries to fight the people of Libya.

Despite the fact that all of these claims have remained unsubstantiated and some have been completely discredited altogether, the moderator and a professor at Oxford University all nodded in agreement and sat silently by while the rebel spokesman continued to spew pure propaganda and lies.

I was quite disgusted by this lack of journalistic integrity on the part of Al Jazeera. Then again, I shouldn’t be surprised that a station funded by the first Arab nation to drop bombs on innocent people in Libya would be propagandizing the ignorant members of their audience.

Regardless, I always seem to expect that non-Western news outlet might have a bit more integrity and honesty but I am continually disappointed.

The reality of the situation in Libya is ugly and every day that goes by it looks more like it is turning into another Iraq or Afghanistan.

The West seems to have a knack for turning people against themselves based on imaginary divisions of skin color, national origin or religious sect.

In Libya it is an especially dangerous situation because it is quite obvious by now that much of the rebel forces have been successfully convinced that black people are automatically Gaddafi mercenaries, even though this is completely untrue.

While there is currently no evidence that proves foreign agents are behind inciting this racist violence, one can safely say that based on the past it would be hard to imagine that Western forces are not encouraging such actions.

The British news organization the Independent has published an article today that revealed some of the instances of this tragic race-based violence in Libya.

One man named Ahmed Bin Sabri told the Independent as he pulled back a tent flap, “Come and see. These are blacks, Africans, hired by Gaddafi, mercenaries.”

Speaking of the dead bodies put on display by Bin Sabri, the Independent aptly points out, “Why had an injured man receiving treatment been executed?”

Bin Sabri merely shrugged in response and the Independent writes, “It was seemingly incomprehensible to him that anything wrong had been done.”

This lack of understanding seems to be widespread among the Libyan rebels and their supporters across the world. It seems as if the rebels can do no wrong and when they are guilty of crimes against humanity they are merely advised to restrain themselves.

Why are the rebels not treated with the same hostility that Gaddafi and his forces were regarded with? Why is NATO not bombing rebels now?

If they actually had any intention of following the United Nations resolution that allows them to be there which mandates the protection of Libyan civilians, they would be attacking the rebels now.

But, of course, they are not. They will not, as the rebels have already made it clear that they will serve their Western masters that have allowed them to come to power through the establishment of a private bank and their sales of oil.

Interestingly, the Independent article still paints a somewhat biased picture of the aftermath of the “revolution” in Libya.

In Gaddafi’s latest broadcast he warned that the people of Tripoli would be targeted by revolutionaries and that women would be raped in their homes. The Independent calls these “unsubstantiated, as are similar claims by his official apologist, Moussa Ibrahim.”

I think that this is a little bit too early to make such generalizations. We have indeed seen that the Libyan rebels are targeting the people of Tripoli, so how exactly are these claims unsubstantiated?

In the next paragraph they claim that Gaddafi “has repeatedly unleashed appalling violence on its own people.”

Actually, these claims are just as unsubstantiated as Gaddafi’s, but since this is a Western media outlet one wouldn’t expect them to point that out, I guess.

However, one must give them credit for pointing out that “the mounting number of deaths of men from sub-Saharan Africa at the hands of the rebels – lynchings in many cases – raises disturbing questions about the opposition administration, the Transitional National Council (TNC) taking over as Libya’s government, and about western backing for it.”

This is an important passage because the West has indeed openly supported the non-democratically declared Libyan government without hesitation.

Other parts of the world, on the other hand, have not been so quick to endorse the murderous band of criminals affiliated with al Qaeda that the media lovingly calls the rebels.

Take the African Union, for example. They refused to recognize the Transitional Council until the violence ceased. The aforementioned segment on Al Jazeera included the rebel spokesman excoriating the AU for their prudent “wait and see” approach.

This shouldn’t be surprising as the rebels are attempting to draw together as much support as possible before the world begins to realize that their forces are committing and have committed war crimes throughout the uprising.

Tripoli is not the only city that has been marred by racist violence at the hands of rebel forces in Libya.

Amnesty International has reported that similar acts of brutality have been committed in the coastal city of Zawiyah. They have reported that black Sub-Saharan African migrant workers have been killed there just as they have throughout Libya since the uprising started.

The rebel attempts at explaining why they have been summarily executing black people who they suspect to be mercenaries are laughable at best.

When the Independent posed this question, “if the men had been killed in action, why did they have their hands tied behind their back?” A rebel fighter from Misrata named Mushab Abdullah said, “Maybe they were injured, and they had to be brought to this hospital and the handcuffs were to stop them from attacking. And then something went wrong.”

The rebels are clearly lacking guidance and sound decision-making skills. Just look at the case of Ahmed Safar Warfalla, a man accused of spreading Gaddafi propaganda. He told the Independent, “They accuse me of a crime, but this is what I did” […] taking out a copy of the Koran from his pocket and pointing it to the sky. “Allah and Libya,” he shouted. “They have Nato technology? This is Arab, Muslim technology. We shall not be defeated.”

I was unaware that the Koran was Gaddafi propaganda but apparently even the rebel militia realized that this claim was a bit farfetched and allegedly decided to let Warfalla go free, because, “the man is mad”.

To be fair, Amnesty International has also reported that pro-Gaddafi forces have killed detainees at two camps in Tripoli where 160 prisoners attempted to flee. Amnesty International says that they have “uncovered evidence” of this and that 23 prisoners were able to flee successfully.

A bunker in Muammar Gaddafi’s hometown of Sirte came under fire from cruise missiles launched by RAF Tornado GR4 bombers, about which a rebel spokesman said, “Maybe the mercenaries there will run away.”

Again, the rebels seem to hold on to the delusion that there is no way a single Libyan could actually support Gaddafi and thus the only people still loyal to the now-underground leader are mercenaries. This is far from the truth and has been proven as such time and time again.

Even the Washington Post admitted that some of the deaths in Tripoli do not seem like normal battlefield deaths.

They report, “not all of them looked like ordinary battlefield deaths.” Speaking of the dead bodies left in the wake of the attack on Gaddafi’s Bab al-Aziziyah compound in Tripoli. “Two dead men lay face down on the grass, their hands bound behind their backs with plastic cuffs.”

I’m not sure how that could be anything other than a summary execution but I’m sure a rebel could come up with some legitimate explanation about how “something happened.”

The Amnesty International researcher for Libya, Diana Eltahawy told the Washington Post that many of the Sub-Saharan African detainees in Zawiyah were migrant workers who were “taken at gunpoint from their homes, workplaces and the street on account of their skin color”.

The Washington Post claims that the civilian leadership of the rebel forces are attempting to stop their forces from committing “revenge attacks” but this is just silly seeing as they continue unabated and have no sign of ending any time soon.

The fact that the attacks are largely based on skin color does not bode well, as it is not as if one day their skin color will change and they can go back to business as usual.

All of this racially based hatred among rebels is not going to go away on its own. The hypocritical treatment of these murders is just another point in case proving that NATO and the West have no interest in protecting civilians but instead are interested in regime change and putting stooges in power who will serve their Western masters like Gaddafi would not. Source

Men accused of being mercenaries fighting for Muammar Gaddafi sit in a rebel vehicle in Tripoli. Photograph: Youssef Boudlal/Reuters

In reality, Gibril (also spelled Jabril) is in control of nothing, apparently not even his own rebel forces, and stunts such as landing in Tripoli are desperate ploys to portray a sense of strength and resolve to garner continued “international support” as NATO’s deadline quickly approaches. Libya’s rebellion, despite the corporate-media’s disingenuous presentation, is divided along tribal and ethnic lines, with most of Libya’s rebels being motivated, not by aspirations for liberal-democracy, but rather by ideological extremism cultivated over the last 30 years by US and British intelligence in the eastern cities of Darnah and Benghazi. As NATO enables these violent ideologues to expand their control over the country, they are systematically committing war crimes including large-scale theft and looting, exiling entire civilian populations from cities, and wholesale genocide. They are also reportedly turning their weapons on one another.

To compound Gibril’s precarious situation, the few fighters he has that are following orders are stretched thin between attempting to hold parts of Tripoli, holding other towns and cities beyond their Benghazi stronghold, and attempting to siege entire cities still standing defiantly against NATO and rebel conquest. The cities of Bani Walid and Sirte, both claimed by rebels as ripe to fall “within hours” have now entirely balked rebel advances, causing many forces to flee with reports that fighters coming back from the front lines are overwhelmed and demoralized.

Despite heavy, and quite obviously indiscriminate bombing by NATO for the better part of two weeks, resistance in these two cities is still fierce enough to keep the rebels well at bay. It is quite apparent that initial reports by Gabril’s “NTC” that only 60-150 Qaddafi fighters remained in Bani Walid, were yet another lie and that the entire city’s civilian population is putting up resistance. The number of “resisters” has gone up piecemeal as the rebel operation drags on, with the number of “Qaddafi soldiers” fighting in Bani Walid well past 1,000 now.

Bani Walid is predominately made of members of Libya’s one-million strong Warfalla tribe, and is decidedly not interested in NATO’s sponsored “Benghazi liberation.” In the wake of NATO’s bombing campaign and special forces entering Tripoli and their setting the stage for looting, torture, and genocide, and after months of reporting on the Libyan rebels’ penchant for war crimes, the London Telegraph has finally admitted in short that the rebels are in fact genocidal racists. In the Telegraph’s article “Gaddafi’s ghost town after the loyalists retreat,” it is reported that rebels have taken the city of Tawarga, where the entire civilian population was either killed, rounded up, or exiled.

The article notes “racist undercurrents” within the Libyan rebellion, a factor independent analysts have been warning about since NATO intervened in March. The report also quotes rebel leaders as saying in regards to the vast amount of property left behind by the exiled population, “the military council will decide what will happen to the buildings. But over our dead bodies will the Tawargas return.” Another rebel commender concluded, “Tawarga no longer exists.” Of course, exiling an entire civilian population from their homes and arbitrarily seizing their property is a grievous war crime, and in this particular case, a war crime done under NATO cover, with US and British diplomatic recognition of the war criminals remaining steadfast, and even many of the arms and the training used to carry out such war crimes courtesy of NATO.

With the fate of Tawarga befalling an increasingly larger number of cities and towns amidst NATO’s campaign of “liberation,” increasingly fierce resistance throughout Libya, including by the entire populations of both Sirte and Bani Walid, is not unexpected. They indeed face NATO sanctioned door-to-door genocide, exile, theft, looting, torture, and in essence everything in reality that NATO falsely accused Qaddafi of doing to justify their military intervention in the first place. Libya is turning out to be a NATO-led Hitlerian campaign of conquest, complete with collective punishment and ground troops carrying out appalling atrocities. The rebels are literally led by a US State Department and UK Home Office listed terror organization, the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG), who’s commanderAbdulhakim Hasadi has openly admitted to fighting NATO troops in Afghanistan. What’s worse is that these facts are not revelations, but well-known inconvenient truths NATO, with the help of the corporate-media, has tried to bury, spin, or otherwise obfuscate until the point of no return in their Libyan intervention had been reached.

As NATO races to dress up their failed operation in Libya as a success so that they can escape an upcoming September 19 vote on continuing the UN mandate under which this crime against humanity is being committed, the lies will become more acute and the atrocities infinitely more brutal and widespread. Now more than ever do Libyan’s require a robust alternative media to cover the truth, “read between the lies” of the corporate-news networks, and ensure that this nation of 6 million is not buried by NATO in deception or the stark silence of public apathy. Source

The Tripoli Military Council is a Foreign Terrorist Organisation

September 13 2011

By ElCid

The U.S. State Department currently designates (see link entry 26) the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG), whose leader is Abdelhakim Belhadj, as a Foreign Terrorist Organisation (FTO).

Under the State Department section “Legal Ramifications of Designation” it states:

It is unlawful for a person in the United States or subject to the jurisdiction of the United States to knowingly provide material support or resources to a designated FTO.

The term material support or resources is defined in 18 U.S.C. § 2339A(b)(1) as any property, tangible or intangible, or service, including currency or monetary instruments or financial securities, financial services, lodging, training, expert advice or assistance, safehouses, false documentation or identification, communications equipment, facilities, weapons, lethal substances, explosives, personnel (1 or more individuals who maybe or include oneself), and transportation, except medicine or religious materials.

Despite the U.S. State Department’s listing of the LIFG as a terrorist group, and in spite of its own laws, NATO, which is supporting the Transitional National Council (TNC) in Libya, is knowingly supporting a known FTO called the “Tripoli Military Council” a.k.a. the “Libyan Islamic Fighting Group” which is led by Abdelhakim Belhadj!

The fact that the “Libyan Islamic Fighting Group” is now calling itself the “Tripoli Military Council” is irrelevant! Changing your name does NOT change your organisation! Perhaps the U.S. State Department should update its list to include aliases. The fact that the name being used is different does NOT absolve any Americans involved in NATO from committing crimes under U.S. law by providing support to this Foreign Terrorist Organisation and that includes the use of the American Air Force under NATO.

“The video shows the war crimes committed by Nato, as well as those committed by the Western media, which has decided to obfuscate the casualties and human suffering of the Libyan people and uphold the humanitarian fiction of Nato’s R2P mandate.” – Professor Michel Chossudovsky

By INA ALLECO R. SILVERIO
Bulatlat.com

As bombs and heavy artillery continue to fall like rain over Libyan capital Tripoli, the western media agencies have chosen to be highly selective in its reporting. Crimes against humanity are being perpetrated with impunity, but with the virtual news blackout, voices of outrage are not being heard globally.

According to Prof. Michel Chossudovsky of the site Global Research on Globalization, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) launched intense attacks on Libyan civilians in the night of August 8 and in the early hours of August 9, 2011 from approximately 2:00 am to 4:00 am Eastern European Time (EET).

According to Global Research, civilians in Tripoli and many other cities in Libya were bombed indiscriminately by Nato. A large number of casualties occurred in the city of Zliten, in the district of Misurata. In Zliten, 85 people were killed including 33 children, 32 women, and 20 men as a result of NATO’s deliberate targeting of residential areas and civilian infrastructure. Many of the injured civilian victims are in critical condition and near death.

Zliten has been under constant Nato bombardment for several days. At least seven civilian homes belonging to local farmers were destroyed, killing entire families. The 20 families who were affected were the targets of the NATO bombings.

NATO’s official military spokesperson for Operation Unified Protector Colonel Roland Lavoie, NATO’s official military spokesperson for Operation Unified Protector, confirmed to US media in a press conference that the Nato did bomb Zliten on August 8 and 9, said the targets were legitimate.

Global Research posted a video on its site directly belying and condemning Lavoie and the Nato’s declarations about the bombing.

“The video shows the war crimes committed by Nato, as well as those committed by the Western media, which has decided to obfuscate the casualties and human suffering of the Libyan people and uphold the humanitarian fiction of Nato’s R2P mandate,” said Chossudovsky.

The video is titled “Make No Mistake. Nato is Committing War Crimes and Crimes against Humanity in Libya” and shot and edited by Julian Teil, Mathieu Ozanon, Mahdi Darius Nazemroaya.

On Aug. 8 when Libyans and the rest of the Muslim world marked the breaking of the Ramadan fast, Nato launched its “Operation Mermaid Dawn” against Libya. According to reports, a Nato warship sailed up and anchored just off the shore at Tripoli, delivering heavy weapons and debarking rebel forces, who were led by Nato officers.Killing civilians left and rightThe United Nations Security Council has given the task to Nato to protect civilians in Libya. Consequent reports have been proving that instead of protecting civilians, however, Nato forces have been killing them left and right and justiiying them as part of their offensives against the government of Muamar Ghadafi. Nato drones and aircraft have been shown on mainstream media reports to conduct bombing attacks in all directions while Nato helicopters strafed the streets with machine guns.In news media in the US, reports about Nato’s operations in Libya have given attention to the mounting casualties but without mentioning who precisely are to blame for the civilians killed. Reports have also focused on the activities of “rebel forces” who have conveniently been described as freedom fighters instead of fighters sent, trained and supported by Nato and its member countries.In the New York Time’s editorial last August 22, it said that “There is little doubt that the rebels would not have gotten this far without Nato’s air campaign and political support from President Obama, President Nicolas Sarkozy of France and Prime Minister David Cameron of Britain. When critics in Washington and elsewhere declared Libya a quagmire, these leaders refused to back away.”Already, the New York Times mentioned what it thinks should be done in Libya if and when Quadafi is removed from power.“As we learned at a very high cost in Iraq, all parties must have a role in building a new political order or those excluded will turn to violence. Decision-making — including how to restart damaged oil wells and share oil revenues — must be transparent,” it said.

CNN media withholding facts about Nato’s operations in Libya

In another report by Nazemroaya who is a Canadian research associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG), it was stated that in the second round of bombing, NATO targeted the same homes once more when local residents had arrived to the rescue of those who had been bombed.

“Dismembered bodies were recovered from the ruble throughout the day. According to a Libyan eyewitness, a pregnant woman was killed with her dead unborn child exposed out of her torn body,” he wrote.

According to Nazemroaya, the only members of the international press that reported the damage of the bombings in detail were Russia Today (RT), TeleSUR, Chinese Central Television (CCTV), and independent journalists.

CNN was present taking footage, but essentially released nothing and distorted the facts,” he wrote.

In various photographs posted on Global Research, dead civilians were shown piled in Zliten Hospital like cardboard and next to them a cameraman identified with CNN was in the background. The said cameraman was seen taking video footage, but no report was released by the CNN.

Nazemroaya also said many of the journalists from NATO countries also held meetings on how to disseminate the news.

“Nato claims categorically that the areas bombed were ‘legitimate’ military targets and that there is no evidence of civilian casualties. Nato bombed areas in Zliten and Majer for strategic reasons. The bombing of civilian areas is tied to the planning of NATO’s offensive against Tripoli. The Libyan clans in these areas have made it clear that they would fight the Transitional Council should its forces try to move westward against Tripoli from their position in Misurata. Nato deliberately bombed these areas “to clear the way” towards Tripoli, ” he said.

In other pictures, it was seen that thousands of people came out to attend the funerals of the victims of the NATO attacks.

“Jamahiraya Satellite Channel was also bombed by Nato. This was part of Nato’s efforts to contain information from coming out of Libya regarding the realities of the war,” said Nazemroaya. “Nato’s killing of civilians is intended to force the Libyan population into surrendering. The “Responsibility to Protect” is an utter shame. A few days earlier Nato left another boatload of migrants and refugees die in the Mediterranean Sea,” he said.

HRW appeals to all sides to uphold human rights

In a related development, the independent Human Rights Watch has sent a team to Tripoli from its head office in New York, which has pushed for a settlement between the Benghazi-based Transitional Council and the Libyan government. The HRW is known to liaise with the US State Department.

In its August 22 statement, the HRW said forces loyal to Gaddafi, forces of the National Transitional Council (NTC) and Nato allies should ensure that they take all feasible steps to avoid harming civilians. It said the NTC supported by Nato should instruct its forces not to engage in acts of revenge.

“The pro-Gaddafi forces, fighters of the National Transitional Council, and NATO must do everything feasible to protect civilians caught in the fighting,” said Joe Stork, deputy Middle East and North Africa director at HRW. “NTC forces should not carry out reprisals against those who fought for or supported the Gaddafi government.”

Nato’s secret plan after Ghadafi’s ouster

Another contributor to Global Research Jason Ditz in his article “alleged that a 70-page plan detailing the United States and Nato forces’ designs for the occupation Libya after the planned ouster of President Muamar Ghadafi has been leaked. The said plan was, Ditz said, approved by political leadership of the rebel Transitional Council in East Libya and it “paints a grim picture of the new regime Nato is planning on installing after the war.”

According to Ditz, the Nato plan includes keeping large portions of the Gadhafian security apparatus intact, with a number of the leaders of the brutal regime’s crackdown left in position on condition of loyalty to the new, pro-West regime.

“Even more controversial will be the ‘Tripoli task force,’ a 15,000-man force operated by the United Arab Emirates which will, after Gadhafi is out of power, occupy the capital city of Tripoli and conduct mass arrests of Gadhafi’s top supporters. The arrests won’t stop there, as of course they never do for a regime looking to stifle dissent,” he said.

Ditz also said the plan includes discussion of a new state radio network that will broadcast orders to the public to support the new government, and warning anti-Gadhafi factions that haven’t endorsed the new regime to stand down.

” The assumption in the report is that these factions, termed a “fifth column,” would also be arrested. The new state media will of course be necessitated all the more by the NATO attacks on the existing media. The Transitional Council confirmed the authenticity of the report, and while the rebel ambassador to the United Arab Emirates expressed ‘regret’ that the truth had come out. He said it is ‘important that the general public knows there is an advance plan,’” Ditz said.

According to independent journalist, the Nato plan won’t likely sit well with the Libyan people who are demanding democratic reform.

“Neither will it go well with those NATO members who acquiesced to the war on the assumption that it was doing something other than swapping brutal regimes in Libya,” he said.

Carve up Libya’s oil fields

Political analyst William Engdahl in an interview with told RT.com said that a regime change in Libya will suit Western oil interests. He said Libya is gong to face a period of prolonged chaos.

“What emerges from that, I think it suits some of the Western oil interests, especially the British and the French, who are fighting like piranhas over grabbing the most juicy oil fields for their own companies,” said Engdahl to RT.com.

Engdahl is the author of “Full Spectrum Dominance: Totalitarian Democracy in the New World Order.’

According to the analyst, the what’s happening in Libya and major efforts of the US and Nato forces to pour at least US$1 billion into the so-called Transitional National Council.

“It’s rival tribal clan warfare that is going on in Libya. This is not a democracy movement by any stretch of the imagination.”

Engdahl told Rt.com that the rebel protests in Libya is actually an insurgency that’s being supported covertly by US-financed armed shipments to the rebels. He said US and Nato want to “carve up the oil fields and get them into Western hands, rather than in Libyan state hands, which Gaddafi held firmly on to.”

Humanitarian needs in Libya

In an email sent to Bulatlat.com, the international medical humanitarian organisation Médecins Sans Frontières (Doctors Without Borders, or MSF) said it is preparing to expand its medical response in western Libya to meet urgent humanitarian needs.

MSF is an international medical humanitarian organisation that has been working in Libya since February 25th 2011. It relies solely on private financial donations to fund its activities in Libya and does not accept funding from any government, donor agency, nor from any military or politically affiliated group. The MSF team in Libya is made up of 44 Libyan staff and 30 international staff.

“Due to an increase in wounded admissions to the MSF-supported hospital in nearby Yefren, MSF has sent medical teams to assess the frontline area south of Zawiyah. Today, MSF has sent another team inside Zawiyah town to support the general hospital which has also seen an influx of newly wounded and to assess conditions in the town,” it said in a statement dated August 22, 2011.

Mike Bates, MSF head of mission in Libya said health structures in the area have been overwhelmed with high numbers of surgical cases and health personnel are completely exhausted.

In the area of Tripoli, several medical facilities report serious shortages of materials and staff, according to MSF’s emergency coordinator, Jonathan Whittal, who has been present in the Libyan capital city since the beginning of August.

Whital said some hospitals have run out of life-saving medication and equipment. There is little electricity and insufficient fuel to run ambulances and some crucial equipment.

“The current fighting in the city will put strained medical facilities under even more pressure,”he said. Source

What Really Happened in Libya? – Mahdi Nazemroaya on GRTV

From: GlobalResearchTV | Sep 13, 2011

This week GRTV talks to Mahdi Nazemroaya, a research associate of the Center for Research in Globalization who spent two months in Libya before escaping after the rebel siege of Tripoli. We discuss what really happened in Libya, including the war crimes perpetrated by NATO in support of the rebels, and how the media helped to enable those war crimes by covering up for the perpetrators.

The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) has “carpet bombed” the entire neighborhoods in Libya.

Sep 7, 2011

NATO war crimes in Libya

Jul 5, 2011

Milovan Drecun, with the decades-long journalistic experience from war zones, went to Libya in June to report what is going on there.

“Gaddafi’s billions” Where is money of Libyans?

Libyans accounts frozen by UN were not stolen by or owned by Gaddafi.

NATO’s War Crimes in Libya : Who Grieves for the Fallen Heroes?

September 10 2011

by Prof. James Petras

The conquest and occupation of Libyan is first and foremost a military victory for NATO. Every aspect of the military offensive was spearheaded and directed by NATO air, sea and ground forces. The NATO invasion of Libya was basically a response to the “Arab spring” : the popular uprisings which spread from North Africa to the Persian Gulf . The NATO assault formed part of a general counter-attack designed to contain and reverse the popular democratic and anti-imperialist movements which had ousted or were on the verge of overthrowing US-client dictators.

Political and military considerations were foremost in motivating the NATO invasion: As late as May 2009, the U.S. and European regimes were developing close bilateral military, economic and security agreements with the Gaddafi regime. According the British daily, the Independent (9/4/2011), official Libyan documents found in its Foreign Office described how on December 16, 2003, the US CIA and British MI6 established close collaboration with the Gaddafi government. The MI6 provided Gaddafi with details on Libyan opposition leaders exiled in England and even drafted a speech for him as he sought rapprochement with the outside world.

U.S. Secretary of State Clinton presented Mutassin Gaddafi to the Washington press during a visit in 2009 stating, “I am very pleased to welcome Minister Gaddafi to the State Department. We deeply value the relationship between the United States and Libya . We have many opportunities to deepen and broaden our co-operation and I am very much looking forward to building on this relationship.”(examiner.com 2/26/2011).

Between 2004-2010 the largest oil and petroleum service multinational corporations, including British Petroleum, Exxon Mobil, Halliburton, Chevron, Conoco and Marathon Oil joined with military-industrial giants like Raytheon and Northrop Grumman, Dow Chemical and Fluor and signed enormous investments and sales deals with Libya (examiner.com op cit).

In 2009, the U.S. State Department awarded a $1.5 million dollar grant to train Libyan civilian and government security forces. The White House budget for 2012 included a grant for training Libyan security forces. General Dynamics signed a $165 million dollar deal in 2008 to equip Libya ’s elite mechanized brigade (examiner.com ibi).

On August 24, 2011 Wikileaks released US embassy cables from Tripoli , which described the positive assessment a group of leading Republican senators had made of US-Libyan relations in during their visit in late 2009. These cables highlighted ongoing security training programs involving Gaddafi’s police and military, as well as the US’ strong support for the regime’s repression of radical Islamists, many of whom are now leading the NATO-backed ‘rebel forces’ now occupying Tripoli.

What caused the NATO countries to shift abruptly from a policy of embracing Gaddafi to launching a brutal scorched-earth invasion of Libya in a matter of months? The key is the popular uprisings, which threatened Euro-US domination. The near total destruction of Libya , a secular regime with the highest standard of living in Africa, was meant to be a lesson, a message from the imperialists to the newly aroused masses of North Africa, Asia and Latin America: The fate of Libya awaits any regime which aspires to greater independence and questions the ascendancy of Euro-American power.

NATO’s savage six-month blitz – over 30,000 air and missile assaults on Libyan civil and military institutions – was a response to those who claimed that the US and the EU were on the “decline” and that the “empire was in decay”. The radical Islamist and monarchist-led “uprising” in Benghazi during March 2011 was backed by and served as a pretext for the NATO imperial powers to extend their counter-offensive on the road to neo-colonial restoration.

NATO’s War and the Phony “Rebel Uprising”

Nothing is more obvious than the fact that the entire war against Libya was in every strategic and material fashion NATO’s war. The casting of the rag-tag collection of monarchists, Islamist fundamentalists, London and Washington-based ex-pats and disaffected Gaddafi officials as “rebels” is a pure case of mass media propaganda. From the beginning the ‘rebels’ depended completely on the military, political, diplomatic and media power of NATO, without which the de facto mercenaries would not have lasted a month, holed up in Benghazi.

A detailed analysis of the main features of the conquest of Libya confirms this assault as a NATO war.

NATO launched brutal air and sea attacks destroying the Libyan air force, ships, energy depots, tanks, artillery and armories and killed and wounded thousands of soldiers, police and civilian militia fighters. Until NATO’s invasion the mercenary ‘rebel’ ground forces had not advanced beyond Benghazi and could barely ‘hold’ territory afterwards. The ‘rebel’ mercenaries ‘advanced’ only behind the withering round-the-clock air attacks of the NATO offensive.

NATO air strikes were responsible for the massive destruction of Libyan civilian and defensive military infrastructure, bombing ports, highways, warehouses, airports, hospitals, electrical and water plants and neighborhood housing, in a war of ‘terror’ designed to ‘turn’ the loyalist mass base against the Gaddafi government. The mercenaries did not have popular backing among Libyan civilians, but NATO brutality weakened active opposition against the ‘rebel’ mercenaries.

NATO won key diplomatic support for the invasion by securing UN resolutions, mobilizing their client rulers in the Arab League, procuring US mercenary trained ‘legionnaires’ from Qatar and the financial backing of the rich rabble in the Gulf. NATO forced ‘cohesion’ among the feuding clans of self-appointed ‘rebel’ mercenary leaders via its (“freezing”) seizure of overseas Libyan government assets amounting to billions of dollars. Thus the financing, arming, training and advising by “Special Forces” were all under NATO control.

NATO imposed economic sanctions, cutting off Libya ’s income from oil sales.. NATO ran an intensive propaganda campaign parading the imperial offensive as a “rebel uprising”; disguising the blistering bombardment of a defenseless anti-colonial army as ‘humanitarian intervention’ in defense of ‘pro-democracy civilians’. The centrally choreographed mass media blitz extended far beyond the usual liberal circles, to convince ‘progressive’ journalists and their newspapers, as well as intellectuals to paint the imperial mercenaries as ‘rebels’ and to condemn the heroic 6-month resistance of the Libyan army and people against foreign aggression. The pathologically racist Euro-US propaganda published lurid images of Libyan government troops (often portrayed as ‘black mercenaries’) receiving massive quantities of ‘Viagra’ from Gadhafi while their own families and homes were, in fact, under aerial assault and blockade by NATO.

The main contribution of the mercenary ‘conquerors’ in this grand production was to provide photo opportunities of rag-tag ‘rebels’ waving rifles in Pentagon-style Che Guevara poses riding around in pickup trucks arresting and brutalizing African migrant workers and black Libyans. The mercenary ‘liberators’ triumphantly entered Libyan cities and towns, which were already scorched and devastated by the NATO colonial air force. Needless to say the mass media ‘adored’ them.

In the aftermath of NATO’s destruction, the ‘rebel’ mercenaries showed their true talents as death squads: They organized the systematic execution of “suspected Gadfafi supporters” and the pillage of homes, stores, banks and public institutions related to the defeated regime. To “secure” Tripoli and snuff out any expression of anti-colonial resistance, the ‘rebel’ mercenaries carry out summary executions – especially of black Libyans and sub-Saharan African workers and their families. The “chaos” in Tripoli described by the mass media is due to the ‘self-styled liberation’ forces running amok. The only quasi–organized forces in Tripoli appear to be the Al Qaeda-linked militants, NATO’s erstwhile allies.

Consequences of the NATO Conquest of Libya

According to ‘rebel’ mercenary technocrats, NATO’s policy of systematic destruction will cost Libya at least a ‘lost decade’. This is an optimistic assessment of how long ‘reconstruction’ will take for Libya to regain the economic levels of February 2011. The major petroleum companies have already lost hundreds of millions in profits and over the decade are expected to lose billions more due to the flight, assassination and jailing of thousands of experienced Libyan and foreign experts, skilled immigrant workers and technical specialists in all fields, especially in view of the destruction of Libyan infrastructure and telecommunication systems.

Sub-Sahara Africa will suffer a huge set-back with the cancellation of the proposed ‘Bank of Africa’, which Gaddafi was developing as an alternative source of investment finance and the destruction of his alternative communication system for Africa . The process of re-colonization involving imperial rule via NATO and UN mercenary ‘peace keepers’ will be chaotic given the inevitable strife among hostile armed Islamist fundamentalists, monarchists, neo-colonial technocrats, tribal warlords and clans as they carve up their private fiefdoms. Intra-imperial rivalries and local political claimants to the oil wealth will further enhance the ‘chaos’ and degrade civilian life, in a nation which had once boasted the highest per capita income and standard of living in Africa. Complex irrigation and petroleum networks, developed under Gaddafi and destroyed by NATO, will remain in shambles. As the example of Iraq has vividly proven, NATO is better at destroying than constructing a modern secular state rooted in a modern civil bureaucracy, universal free public education, secular judicial system and modern health services. The US policy of rule and ruin reigns supreme in NATO’s juggernaut.

Motivation for the Invasion

What motivated NATO to initiate a massive, six-month long aerial bombardment of Libya , followed by invasion and crimes against humanity? Civilian deaths and the widespread destruction of Libyan civil society by NATO flies in the face of its claims that the air assaults were meant to “protect civilians” from imminent Gaddafi-led genocide, ‘rebel’ claims which were never substantiated. Bombing Libya ’s critical economic infrastructure allows us to categorically conclude that the NATO assault has little to do with ‘economic rationality’ or any such consideration. The primary motivation for NATO’s actions can be found in earlier policies related to a spring counter-offensive against the mass popular movements that overthrew US-EU puppets in Egypt and Tunisia and were threatening client regimes in Yemen , Bahrain and elsewhere.

Despite the fact that the US-NATO were already engaged in several colonial wars (Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia) and Western public opinion had been demanding withdrawal in light of the costs, Western imperial leaders felt too much was at stake and calculated that losses could be minimized. NATO’s overwhelming mastery of the air and sea made short work of Libya ’s puny military defense capability, allowing them to bomb the cities, ports and vital infrastructure with impunity and enforce a total economic blockade. They calculated that massive bombing would terrorize the Libyan people into submission and bring about a quick colonial victory without any NATO military losses, the prime concern of Western public opinion, and permit a triumphant ‘rebel’ mercenary army to march into Tripoli .

The Arab popular rebellions were the central concern and the motor force behind NATO’s destruction of Libya . These mass popular uprisings had toppled the long-standing pillars of US-Israel-EU dominance in the Middle East . The fall of the Egyptian dictator Hosni Mubarak and his Tunisian counterpart Ben Ali sent tremors through the imperial foreign offices. These successful uprisings had the immediate ripple effect of inspiring similar movements throughout the region. Bahrain, housing the key naval base for the US navy in the Middle East and neighboring Saudi Arabia (the US key strategic ally in the Arab world), witnessed a prolonged massive uprising of civil society, while Yemen ruled by the US- puppet Ali Saleh, faced mass popular movements and militant resistance. Morocco and Algeria were experiencing popular demands for democracy. The common thread in the Arab peoples’ movements was their demands to end EU , US and Israeli domination of the region, an end to massive corruption and nepotism, free elections and a solution to wide-spread unemployment via large-scale job programs. As anti-colonial movements grew in breadth and intensity their demands radicalized from political to social democracy, from a democratic to an anti-imperialist foreign policy. Workers’ demands were enforced by strikes and calls for the prosecution of repressive police and internal security and military officials guilty of crimes against their citizens.

The U.S. , E.U. and Israel were caught by surprise – their intelligence agencies so deeply embedded in the smelly crevices of their clients’ secret police institutions failed to detect the popular explosions. The popular uprisings came at a critical and inopportune moment, especially for the US where domestic support for NATO wars in Iraq and Afghanistan had declined sharply given the economic crises and major social cutbacks to pay for these wars. Moreover, in Iraq and Afghanistan the US-NATO troops were losing ground: The Taliban was, in effect, the real ‘shadow government’. Pakistan , despite its puppet regime and compliant generals, faced overwhelming popular opposition to the air war against its citizens in frontier villages and towns. The US drone strikes killing militants and civilians were answered with the sabotage of vital transport supplying the occupation forces in Afghanistan . Faced with the deteriorating global situation, the NATO powers, decided that they needed to counter-attack in the most decisive and visible manner by destroying an independent, secular regime like Libya and thereby re-affirming their global supremacy, countering the image of defeat and retreat and, above all, re-energizing the “declining imperial power”.

The Imperial Counter-Attack

The US led the way in its counter-offensive in Egypt , by backing the power grab by the military junta led by Mubarak loyalists, who then proceeded to disperse and repress the pro-democracy and workers movements and to end all talk of restructuring the economy. A pro-NATO collective dictatorship of generals replaced the personal autocratic rule of Hosni Mubarak. The NATO powers provided “emergency” billions to float the new regime and ‘derail’ the Egyptian people’s march to democracy. In Tunisia a similar process took hold: The EU, especially France and the US , backed a reshuffling of the ousted regime bringing to the fore a new/old cast of neo-colonial politicians. They plied them with funds, insuring that the military-police apparatus remained intact despite continued mass discontent with the conformist policies of the ‘new/old regime.

In Bahrain and Yemen , the NATO powers followed a dual track, unsure of the outcome between the massive pro-democracy movements and the pro-imperial autocrats. In Bahrain, the West called for ‘reform’ and ‘dialogue’ with the majority Shia population and a peaceful resolution, while continuing to arm and protect the Bahraini royalty – all the while looking for a pliant alternative if the incumbent puppet was overthrown. The NATO-backed Saudi invasion of Bahrain in support of the dictatorship and the subsequent wave of terror effectively showed West’s true intentions. In Yemen the NATO powers continued to support the brutal Ali Saleh regime.

Meanwhile the NATO powers were exploiting internal discontent in Syria by arming and providing diplomatic support to the Islamic fundamentalists and their minority neo-liberal allies in an effort to overthrow the Bashar al-Assad regime. Thousands of Syrian civilians, police and soldiers have been killed in this simmering civil war, which NATO propaganda presents as a case of state terror against ‘peaceful civilians’, ignoring the killing of soldiers and civilians by armed Islamists and the very real threat to Syria’s secular population and religious minorities.

The Counter-Offensive and NATO’s Invasion of Libya

The destruction and invasion of Libya reversed seven years of accommodation and co-operation with Gaddifi. There were no ‘incidents’ in Libya or elsewhere that had threatened the NATO countries’ economic and military interests. Libya was still an independent country, pursuing a pro-African agenda which had spearheaded and funded the establishment of an independent regional bank and communications system designed to bypass IMF and World Bank control. Libya ’s close ties to all the major NATO oil companies and to Wall Street investment banks as well as its ongoing bilateral military programs with the US did not shield it from the NATO’s attack. Libya was deliberately destroyed by a 6-month campaign of relentless bombing by NATO air and naval forces to serve as an example to the Arab popular movements: NATO’s message to the Arab pro-democracy movements was that it was prepared to launch new offensive wars with the same devastating consequences as the Libyan people just endured; the imperial powers were not in decline and any independent anti-colonial regime would suffer the same fate. NATO’s message to the African Union was clear: There will be no independent regional bank organized by Gaddafi or anyone else. There is no alternative to imperial banks, the IMF or the World Bank.

Through the devastation of Libya, the West was telling the Third World that, contrary to the pundits who chattered about ‘the decline of the US empire’, NATO was willing to use overwhelming and genocidal military power to establish puppet regimes, no matter how backward, vicious and regressive the puppets, because they will ultimately obey NATO and answer to the White House.

NATO’s invasion and destruction of a secular modern republic, like Libya , which had used its oil wealth to develop Libyan society, was a stern message to democratic popular movements. Any independent Third World regime can be rolled back; colonial puppet regimes can be foisted onto a devastated people; the end of colonialism is not inevitable, imperial rule is back.

NATO’s invasion of Libya sends a message to freedom fighters everywhere: There is a high cost to independence; acting outside of imperial channels, even if only to a limited degree, can bring swift destruction. Moreover, the NATO war on Libya demonstrates to all nationalist regimes that making concessions to Western economic, political and military interests– as Gaddafi’s sons and their neo-liberal entourage had pursued full accommodation—does not offer security. In fact concessions may have encouraged imperial penetration. The West’s burgeoning ties with Libyan officials facilitated their defections and promised an easy victory over Tripoli . The NATO powers believed that with a regional uprising in Benghazi , a handful of defectors from the Gaddafi regime and their military control of the air and sea, Libya would be an easy victory on the way to a widespread rollback of the Arab Spring.

The “cover” of an orchestrated regional military-civilian “uprising” and the imperial mass media propaganda blitz against the Libyan government was sufficient to convince the majority of western leftist intellectuals to take up the cudgels for the mercenary ‘rebels”: Samir Samir Amin, Immanuel Wallerstein, Lowy, Juan Cole and many others backed the mercenary “rebels” … demonstrating the irrelevance and bankruptcy of the remnants of the old left.

The Long Term, Large Scale Consequences of NATOs War

The invasion and conquest of Libya marks a new phase in Western imperialism’s drive to reassert its primacy in the Arab-Islamic world. The ongoing offensive is clearly evident in the mounting pressures, sanctions, and arming of the Syrian opposition to Bashar al-Assad, the ongoing consolidation of the Egyptian military junta and the demobilization of the pro-democracy movement in Tunisia . How far “backwards” the process can be pushed depends on the revitalization and regrouping of the pro-democracy movements, currently in ebb.

Unfortunately, NATO’s victory over Libya will strengthen the arguments of the militarist wings of the US and EU ruling class who claim that the ‘military option’ brings results, that the only policy that “the anti-colonial Arabs” understand is force. The Libyan outcome will strengthen the hand of policymakers who favor a continued long-term US-NATO presence in Iraq and Afghanistan and promote a military offensive against Iran and Syria . Israel has already capitalized on NATO’s victory against Gaddafi via its expansion of huge colonial settlements in the West Bank, increasing bombing and missile raids on Gaza , a major naval and army build-up in the Red Sea region adjoining Egypt and confrontational posturing toward Turkey .

As of early September, members of the African Union, especially South Africa , have yet to recognize the mercenary “transition” regime imposed by NATO on Libya . Aside from the Libyan people, Sub-Saharan Africa will be the biggest immediate loser in the overthrow of Gaddafi. Libya ’s generous aid, grants and loans, bought the African states a degree of independence from the harsh conditions of the IMF, World Bank and Western bankers. Gaddafi was a major sponsor and backer of regional integration – including the African Union. His large scale development programs, especially oil and water infrastructure and construction projects, employed hundreds of thousands of sub-Saharan African immigrant workers and specialists who remitted billions to their home countries, helping the balance of payments and reducing deficits and poverty at home. In place of Gaddafi’s positive economic contribution, Africa now faces Tripoli transformed into a colonial outpost, fortifying US military command in Africa and a new push to strengthen military ties with the empire.

However, beyond the present-day celebrations of their imperial military success in Libya , the war only exacerbates the weakening of Western economies by diverting scarce domestic resources to wage prolonged wars with no decisive victories. Ongoing social cuts and harsh austerity programs have undercut any ruling class efforts to whip up phony mass chauvinist celebrations for “democratic victories over tyrants”. The naked aggression against Libya has heightened Russian, Chinese and Venezuelan security concerns. Russia and China will veto any UN Security Council sanctions on Syria . Venezuela and Russia are signing new multi-billion dollar military co-operation agreements, strengthening Caracas ’s military defense in the wake of the Libyan invasion.

For all the ruling class and mass media euphoria, the ‘win’ over Libya , grotesque and criminal in the destruction of Libyan secular society and the ongoing brutalization of black Libyans, does not solve the profound economic crises in the EU-US. It does not affect China ’s growing competitive advantages over its western competitors. It does not end US-Israeli isolation faced with an imminent world-wide recognition of Palestine as an independent state. The absence of left-wing western intellectual solidarity for independent Third World nations, evident in their support for the imperial-based mercenary “rebels” is more than compensated by the emergence of a radical new generation of left-wing activists in South Africa, Chile, Greece, Spain, Egypt, Pakistan and elsewhere. These are youth, whose solidarity with anti-colonial regimes is based on their own experience with exploitation, “marginalization” (unemployment) and repression at home.

Is it too much to hope that a War Crimes Tribunal could be organized to prosecute NATO leaders for crimes against humanity, for genocide against the people of Libya ? Can the brutal link between costly imperial wars abroad and increasing austerity and domestic decay lead to the revival of an anti-imperialist peace movement based on withdrawal of imperial troops abroad and public domestic investments for jobs, health and education for the working and middle class?

If the destruction and occupation of Libya marks a time of infamy for the NATO powers, it also establishes a new awareness that a people can struggle and resist 6 months of intense, massive bombings from all the NATO powers. Perhaps when their heroic example becomes clear and the fog of media propaganda is lifted, a new emerging generation of fighters can vindicate the battle of Libya, as a continuation of the struggle for the definitive emancipation of the Afro-Arab and Islamic peoples from the yoke of Western imperialism.

Member States of the United Nations

SECTION #2 In the e-mail’s subject box:
PLEASE PUT A STOP TO NATO WAR IN LIBYA – APPEAL TO NON-BELLIGERANT UNSC MEMBERS

SECTION #3 Body text:
“PLEASE PUT A STOP TO THE NATO WAR ON LIBYA!”
WE APPEAL TO NON-BELLIGERENT MEMBERS
OF THE U.N. SECURITY COUNCIL
• to put an end to the misuse of U.N. Security Council Resolution 1973 to influence the internal affairs of Libya through warfare, by revoking it, and
• to press for a peaceful resolution of the conflict in Libya, backing the African Union’s central role in this context.
We thank those countries that have tried, and are still trying, to work towards peace.
Our appeal is based on the following:
• the military intervention in Libya undertaken by some NATO members has now gone far beyond the provisions of Security Council Resolution 1973, and is based on hyped-up accounts of defenseless citizens being massacred by their government, while the truth is that, in Libya, there is an on-going and intense internal armed conflict;
• we are aware of the economic and geo-strategic interests that lie behind the war in Libya and, in particular, behind NATO support of one of the two armed factions;
• NATO military intervention in Libya has killed (and is continuing to kill) countless civilians, as well as harming and endangering the civilian population, including migrants and refugees, in various other ways;
• the belief, at this stage, that only non-belligerent countries — and particularly those with U.N. Security Council voting rights — can successfully bring a peaceful end to the conflict through negotiations and by implementing the opening paragraph of UNSC Resolution 1973, which calls for an immediate ceasefire.

Christopher Busby: Chernobyl-like radiation found in Tokyo

Aug 17, 2011

Workers at Japan’s Fukushima plant say the ground under the facility is cracking and radioactive steam is escaping through the fissures. They also say pipes and at least one reactor were seriously damaged before the tsunami hit the area in March. RT talks to Christopher Busby of the European Committee on Radiation Risks.

Aug 18, 2011

Paul Gunter, Beyond Nuclear joins Thom Hartmann. Meanwhile, Japan is not out of the danger zone…in fact the nuclear crisis is getting worse and worse! We’ve recently learned from Japan that the amount of radiation released was more than 20 times that from the Hiroshima bomb, and now it looks they may be experiencing the early stages of a total China Syndrome meltdown.

Hartmann – Fukushima…is this the China Syndrome?

I just came across this. There is a lot of information there. Do take a look.

Fukushima radiation alarms doctors

August 18 2011

“How much radioactive materials have been released from the plant?” asked Dr Tatsuhiko Kodama, a professor at the Research Centre for Advanced Science and Technology and Director of the University of Tokyo’s Radioisotope Centre, in a July 27 speech to the Committee of Health, Labour and Welfare at Japan’s House of Representatives.

“The government and TEPCO have not reported the total amount of the released radioactivity yet,” said Kodama, who believes things are far worse than even the recent detection of extremely high radiation levels at the plant.

___________________________________

Recent readings taken at the plant are alarming.

When on August 2nd readings of 10,000 millisieverts (10 sieverts) of radioactivity per hour were detected at the plant, Japan’s science ministry said that level of dose is fatal to humans, and is enough radiation to kill a person within one to two weeks after the exposure.

10,000 millisieverts (mSv) is the equivalent of approximately 100,000 chest x-rays.

_____________________________________

According to Dr Kodama, the total amount of radiation released over a period of more than five months from the ongoing Fukushima nuclear disaster is the equivalent to more than 29 “Hiroshima-type atomic bombs” and the amount of uranium released “is equivalent to 20” Hiroshima bombs.

America’s Northwest sees 35% infant mortality spike post-Fukushima

The report spotlighted data from the CDC‘s Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report on infant mortality rates in eight northwest cities, including Seattle, in the 10 weeks after Fukushima’s nuclear meltdown.

The average number of infant deaths for the region moved from an average of 9.25 in the four weeks before Fukushima’ nuclear meltdown, to an average of 12.5 per week in the 10 weeks after. The change represents a 35% increase in the northwest’s infant mortality rates.
In comparison, the average rates for the entire U.S. rose only 2.3%.

Radiation: Radiation exposure, especially the levels associated with cancer treatment, can cause infertility in both women and men. High doses can cause miscarriage or fetal defect in pregnant women.

The more people that get cancer the more treatments that will be given and the more treatments given equals less people to have children. About One in three people get cancer. One third of the population could become sterile. Give or take a few.

Effects of Radiation

Rem is the term used to describe equivalent or effective radiation dose. In the International System of Units, the sievert (Sv) describes equivalent or effective radiation dose. One Sievert is equal to 100 rem. It is a unit that is the product of energy absorbed in human tissues and the quality of the radiation being absorbed (the ability of the radiation to cause damage).

We have a lot to be concerned about. Some people say small amounts of radiation are good for you while others say there is no amount of radiation that is safe. So why can’t someone make it easy to decide when or if you should worry about radiation exposure? That is exactly what we’re going to do here—help by providing the facts. If you want additional information on why there is disagreement about the effects of low-level radiation, we have provided this in the section titled “Controversy.”

Let’s Begin

Radiation specialists use the unit “rem” (or sievert) to describe the amount of radiation dose someone received. We are going to use that unit throughout the sections. Without getting into technical specifics about that unit, it is enough to know that it indicates a measure of how much radiation energy is absorbed in our body. And, as we will see in other sections, the total energy that is absorbed and its effectiveness in causing change is the basis for determining whether health effects may result.

We’ll get into some detail later, but for a baseline—

1 rem received in a short period or over a long period is safe—we don’t expect observable health effects.

10 rem received in a short period or over a long period is safe—we don’t expect immediate observable health effects, although your chances of getting cancer might be very slightly increased.

100 rem received in a short time can cause observable health effects from which your body will likely recover, and 100 rem received in a short time or over many years will increase your chances of getting cancer.

1,000 rem in a short or long period of time will cause immediately observable health effects and is likely to cause death.

Safe or Not?

Why do some people say all radiation exposure is bad and others say it can be okay? Even the scientific community differs on the answer to the question of low radiation doses and health effects. Radiation can cause biological changes in cells when they are outside the human body, and these can be seen in a laboratory even when the dose is small. However, these changes are not seen or cannot be related to health effects in humans. The fact that changes can occur may make some people believe all radiation is bad and the fact that this is not related to human health effects may make others believe it is safe at low levels. The human health effects that have been observed have been when individuals or groups have received larger doses of radiation (more than 50 rem) from events like those due to military uses of nuclear weapons, accidents, and uses of radiation in medicine for therapy.

If a population receives a radiation dose of 100 rem in a short period of time, we expect health effects in some of the people who were exposed. However, many who receive a dose at that level will not have any long-lasting health effects. This is like so many other things in our lives. If we eat a high-cholesterol, high-fat diet, some of us may end up with heart disease. But that isn’t true for everyone; some can eat this way for a lifetime and not have any heart-disease symptoms.

It isn’t a complete guessing game, though. Because radiation has been studied so much, there are some things we can say with certainty that apply to a majority of the population. We can say that for a small radiation dose (<10 rem), the risk of cancer is very small, too small to have any observable health impact in the population of the United States. We know that if the radiation dose is quite large and given in a short period of time, like the 1,000 rem in the chart above, it will cause an individual to be very sick and die.

Let’s Learn More about the Effects of Radiation

Let’s fill in the chart with a little bit more of what we know about getting a radiation dose to our entire body:

0 – 5 rem received in a short period or over a long period is safe—we don’t expect observable health effects.

5 – 10 rem received in a short period or over a long period is safe—we don’t expect observable health effects. At this level, an effect is either nonexistent or too small to observe.

10 – 50 rem received in a short period or over a long period—we don’t expect observable health effects although above 10 rem your chances of getting cancer are slightly increased. We may also see short-term blood cell decreases for doses of about 50 rem received in a matter of minutes.

50 – 100 rem received in a short period will likely cause some observable health effects and received over a long period will increase your chances of getting cancer. Above 50 rem we may see some changes in blood cells, but the blood system quickly recovers.

100 – 200 rem received in a short period will cause nausea and fatigue. 100 – 200 rem received over a long period will increase your chances of getting cancer.

200 – 300 rem received in a short period will cause nausea and vomiting within 24-48 hours. Medical attention should be sought.

300 – 500 rem received in a short period will cause nausea, vomiting, and diarrhea within hours. Loss of hair and appetite occurs within a week. Medical attention must be sought for survival; half of the people exposed to radiation at this level will die if they receive no medical attention.

500 – 1,200 rem in a short period will likely lead to death within a few days.

>10,000 rem in a short period will lead to death within a few hours.

The health effects listed above are for a radiation dose to the entire body. If the radiation is given to a smaller area of the body, there are other effects that may occur, but illness or death is not expected unless noted:

40 rem or more locally to the eyes can cause cataracts.

100 rem – 500 rem or more can cause hair loss for a section of the body that has hair.

200 rem or more locally to the skin can cause skin reddening (similar to a sunburn).

1,000 rem or more can cause a breakdown of the intestinal lining, leading to internal bleeding, which can lead to illness and death when the dose is to the abdomen.

1,500 rem or more locally to the skin can cause skin reddening and blistering. Source

At least 85 civilians have been killed in the latest NATO airstrikes in Libya near the western city of Zlitan, a Libyan official says.

The attacks took place in the village of Majer, south of Zlitan, which is located 160 km (100 miles) east of the capital, Tripoli, late on Monday, Libyan government spokesman Mussa Ibrahim said, AFP reported.

Thirty three children, 32 women and 20 men from 12 families were killed in the “massacre,” Ibrahim added.

“After the first three bombs dropped at around 11:00 p.m. (2100 GMT) on Monday, many residents of the area ran to the bombed houses to try to save their loved ones. Three more bombs struck,” he further said.

The US and NATO have unleashed a punishing, UN-mandated offensive against embattled Libyan ruler Muammar Gaddafi in an alleged attempt to pressure him into giving up power.

NATO has conducted thousands of airstrikes against Libya since it assumed control of the military campaign in late March.

The airstrikes by the military alliance have killed many civilians as well as revolutionary forces that are fighting against the government troops.

Experts say the main motive behind the Western attack on Libya is the vast oil reserves of the North African country. Source

NATO is also going to poison the land, water and people with radioactive garbage (DU), as they have everywhere else they go. In the end millions will die. Seems like an instant replay of Iraq, Afghanistan or anywhere else NATO goes..We can expect death rates to skyrocket from cancer etc. NATO always give the gift of death that keeps on killing for years to come. They have the Gaul to call themselves the good guys.

War for resources is old hat for NATO and friends.

NATO and the US should be ashamed of themselves and their people need to tell their governments enough is enough. They are sick of their bloody wars.

Every time NATO and the US start yet another war the price of Gas/Oil goes up.

Guess who pays for all those wars your tax dollars? You who are just getting by.

I am sick of paying for their bloody wars.

I am fed up with all the deaths of innocent people.

The wars are destroying the environment of the world. That radiations goes with the wind. You can expect cancer rates around the world to go up yet again like one in three isn’t high enough. I guess they want to kill off everyone of us. So when we all die of radiation, who will be left? Then I guess they will say oops we made a mistake. Well it will be to late then. No wonder Health Care costs are going up all the time, the war machine is making us all sick. Don’t ever think because it is in another country you are safe you are not.

When the Nuclear reactor in Japan went up it spread all around the entire planet. Especially the Northern hemisphere but it will make it’s way south in the near future. Radiation knows no boundaries, nor does DU radiation.

The people are angry, This video isn’t in English, but you don’t have to be a translator to figure out what they are saying.

‘NATO after vast oil reserves in Lybia’

August 10 2011

A political analyst says he believes that the main motive behind the Western attack on Libya is the vast oil reserves of the North African country.

“It is undoubtedly true that the oil resources, the natural resources of Libya, are an important issue for the Western powers… even more important than the oil resources was the desire to intervene in the process of the Arab revolutions and to try and get some control over.” John Reese, from Stop the War Coalition, said in an exclusive interview with Press TV.

NATO has conducted thousands of airstrikes against Libya since it assumed control of the military campaign in late March.

NATO has deployed its full range of aircraft in the war on Libya.

The developments come as the Western forces claim the operation in Libya is aimed at protecting civilians.

Scores of civilians have been killed in Libya since US-led forces launched aerial and sea attacks on the North African country.

Libyan troops have also killed thousands of civilians since a revolution started against embattled ruler Muammar Gaddafi in mid-February.

Reese also criticized Saudis involvement in Bahrain, saying that Washington gave them the green light to attack the Bahraini people.

He concluded that Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah was pursuing the US interests in the Middle East.

Critics accuse the West of hypocrisy over the offensive on Libya, along with its silence towards the brutal crackdowns on similar anti-regime movements elsewhere in the Arab world, such as in Bahrain, Saudi Arabia and Yemen. Source Very informative video at site.

LIBYA produces 1.7m of the world’s 88m barrels a day (b/d) of oil. OECD countries import 1.2m b/d, and China another 150,000. The chart shows which of Libya’s main export markets are most dependent on it for their oil. The little boxes at the right on the graph tell who imports the most. . Italy is the biggest importer: in 2010 it took 376,000 b/d .

Libya has the largest proven oil reserves in Africa with 42 billion barrels of oil and over 1.3 trillion cubic metres of gas. With only 25% of Libya’s surface territory explored to date there is every chance that actual reserves could see this figure dwarfed in coming years.

As Europe’s single largest oil supplier, the second largest oil producer in Africa and the continent’s fourth largest gas supplier, Libya dominates the petroleum sector in the Southern Mediterranean area and has ambitious plans for the future.

More than 50 international oil companies are present in the market and together with subsidiaries of the Libyan National Oil Corporation (NOC) are contributing to the country’s current production capacity of 2m b/d. NOC plans oilfield investment of some $10bn over the coming three years to increase potential production.

The Fukushima Nuclear Disaster: High Radiation Levels In America! Oklahoma City Hit By High Radiation Levels From Rainfall On August 6th, 2011.

August 7 2011

For a while now, I have been trying to keep up on any reports of high radiation being experience here in Canada as a result of the fallout from the Fukushima nuclear disaster that is still ongoing, despite all of the news reports that are now downplaying that disaster. More reports about the levels here in Canada will be coming up soon in this blog….

In the meantime, I just came across a very startling and disturbing video, that comes from Youtube user “FireByNIght”. In this video, that I have embedded here in this report, “FireByNight” has taken readings in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, on the night of August 6th, 2011, of radiation from rainfall that had occurred that night after a very long period of drought. Please watch this video to see the results for yourselves:

NTS Notes: Again, I want to thank Youtube user, “FireByNight” for taking these readings and exposing the fact that America, as well as Canada, is experiencing deadly radioactive fallout from the Fukushima nuclear disaster. It does seem that the citizens in BOTH the US and Canada are being lied to when our governments claim: “There is no cause for alarm” when it comes to this ongoing nuclear disaster.

And where is the US as well as the Canadian government in all of this? Our media is continuing to downplay the fallout danger from Fukushima, and trying to keep the public unaware of the dangers that we truly face. Again as I have stated before this is not negligence on the part of our media, or our governments, but outright criminality!

Please spread this information around for others to see…. We must all demand that our governments come clean about the danger that we face from the ongoing disaster at Fukushima.

Dr. Helen Caldicott’s March 18th press conference in Montreal, sponsored by the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG)

Our thanks to Felton Davis for the transcription from the GRTV Video recording and for the annotations.

This press conference organized by Globla Research was held in the context of Helen Caldicott’s public lecture to Montreal on March 18, 2011.

First I want to present this report, produced by the New York Academy of Sciences, a report on Chernobyl. It can be downloaded.(2) They translated 5,000 articles from Russian for the first time into English. It seems that nearly a million people have already died as a result of Chernobyl, despite what the WH0(3) says and the IAEA.(4) This is one of the most monstrous cover-ups in the history of medicine. Because everybody should know about this.

Then we extrapolate through to Japan. Japan is by orders of magnitude many times worse than Chernobyl. Never in my life did I think that six nuclear reactors would be at risk.(5) I knew that three GE engineers who helped design these Mark I GE reactors, resigned because they knew they were dangerous.(6)

So Japan built them on an earthquake fault. The reactors partially withstood the earthquake, but the external electricity supply was cut off, and the electricity supplies the cooling water, a million gallons a minute, to each of those six reactors. Without the cooling water, the water [level] falls, and the rods are so hot they melt, like at Three Mile Island, and at Chernobyl.

So the emergency diesel generators, which are as large as a house, got destroyed by the tsunami, so there is no way to keep the water circulating in the reactors.(7) Also, on the roofs of the reactors, not within the containment vessel, are cooling pools. Every year they remove about thirty tons of the most radioactive rods that you can possibly imagine.(8) Each one is twelve feet long and half an inch thick. It gives out so much radiation, that if you stand next to it for a couple of minutes, you’ll die. Not drop dead. Remember Litvinenko, the Russian, who got poisoned by polonium?(9) You’ll die like that, with your hair falling out, and bleeding with massive infection, like AIDS patients die.

And [the spent fuel rods] are thermally hot, so they have to be put in a big pool, and continually cooled. The pool has really no roof.

There have been three hydrogen explosions, blowing off the roof of the building, not the containment vessel of the core, but the roof. And exposing the cooling pool.(10) Two of the cooling pools are dry. They have no water in them. Meaning that the nuclear fuel rods are covered with a material called zirconium. When zirconium is exposed to air, it burns, it ignites. Two of the cooling pools at this moment are burning. In the cooling pools are many times, like 10 to 20 times more radiation than in each reactor core. In each reactor core is as much long-lived radiation as would be produced by a thousand Hiroshima-sized bombs. We are dealing with diabolical energy.

E=MC2 is the energy that blows up nuclear bombs. Einstein said nuclear power is a hell of a way to boil water.(11) Because that is all nuclear power is used for, to boil water through the massive heat, turn it into steam, and turn a turbine which generates electricity.

Now when you fission uranium, 200 new elements are formed, all of which are much more poisonous to the body than the original uranium.(12) Although uranium is pretty poisonous. America used it in Fallujah, and in Baghdad. And in Fallujah, 80 per cent of the babies being born are grossly deformed.(13) They’re being born without brains, single eyes, no arms… The doctors have told the women to stop having babies. The incidence of childhood cancer has gone up about twelve times. This is genocide — it’s a nuclear war being conducted in Iraq. The uranium that they’re using lasts more than 4.5 billion years. So we’re contaminating the cradle of civilization. “The coalition of the willing!”

In the nuclear power plants, however, there is a huge amount of radiation: two hundred elements. Some last seconds, some last millions of years. Radioactive iodine lasts six weeks, causes thyroid cancer. That’s why people are saying, “Better take potassium iodide,” because that blocks the thyroid uptake of radioactive iodine, which later can cause thyroid cancer.

In Chernobyl, over 20,000 people have developed thyroid cancer.(14) They have their thyroids out, and they will die unless they take thyroid replacement every day, like a diabetic has to take insulin.
Strontium-90 will get out, it lasts for 600 years. It goes to the bone, where it causes bone cancer or leukemia. Cesium lasts for 600 years — it’s all over Europe. 40 per cent of Europe is still radioactive. Turkish food is extremely radioactive. Do not buy Turkish dried apricots, or Turkish hazelnuts. The Turks were so cross with the Russians, they sent all their radioactive tea over to Russia after Chernobyl.(15)

Forty per cent of Europe is still radioactive. Farms in Britain, their lambs are so full of cesium they can’t sell them. Don’t eat European food.

But that’s nothing compared to what’s happening now. One of the most deadly [nuclear byproducts] is plutonium, named after Pluto, god of the underworld. One millionth of a gram, if you inhale it, would give you cancer. Hypothetically, one pound of plutonium if evenly distributed could give everyone on earth cancer. Each reactor has 250 kilograms of plutonium in it. You only need 2.5 kilograms to make an atomic bomb, because plutonium is what they make bombs with.

So any country that has a reactor, works with your uranium. You [Canada] are the biggest exporter of uranium in the world.(16) Canada sells two things: it sells wheat for life, and uranium for death. Plutonium is going to get out and spread all over the northern hemisphere. It’s already heading towards North America now.

Radioactive iodine, plus strontium, plus cesium, plus tritium, and I could go on and* on and on. When it rains, downs come fallout, and it concentrates in food. If it gets into the sea, the algae concentrate it, hundreds of times. And the crustaceans concentrate it, hundreds of times. And then the little fish, then the big fish, then us.(17)

Because we stand on the apex of the food chain. You can’t taste these radioactive food elements, you can’t see them, you can’t smell them. They’re silent. When you get them inside your body, you don’t suddenly drop dead of cancer, it takes five to sixty years to get your cancer, and when you feel a lump in your breast, it doesn’t say, “I was made by some strontium-90 in a piece of fish you ate twenty years ago.”

All radiation is damaging. It’s cumulative — each dose you get adds to your risk of getting cancer. The americium is more dangerous than plutonium — I could go on and on. Depends if it rains if you’re going to get it or not. If it rains and the radiation comes down, don’t grow food, and don’t eat the food, and I mean don’t eat it for 600 years.

Radioactive waste from nuclear power is going to be buried, I hear, next to Lake Ontario. It’s going to leak, last for millions of years, it’s going to get into the water, and into the food chains. Radioactive waste will induce epidemics of cancer, leukemia, and genetic disease for the rest of time. This is the greatest public health hazard the world has ever witnessed, apart from the threat every day of nuclear war.

Einstein said “the splitting of the atom changed everything, save man’s mode of thinking” — very profound — “and thus we drift toward unparalleled catastrophe.” We are arrogant, we have a lot of hubris, and I think the reptilian mid-brain of some men’s brains is pathological.(18)

We are in a situation where we have harnessed the energy of the sun. It is totally out of control. And there’s simply nothing we can do about it.

Obama in a Radiation protection suit, says all is well. Right Sure it is.

I feel so safe after that one. Don’t you?

Obama says “Don’t worry folks, I am not paranoid that is why I am wearing the pretty yellow suit”.

Hello any intelligent life out there. And one has to wonder where Obama and friends are getting their drinking water and food..

Monitoring stations catch a fraction of Fukushima fallout

By Alex Roslin, August 4, 2011

Confused by all the nuke lingo about becquerels and sieverts and what it means for your health? So were most of the nuclear experts we talked to for this story.

It also doesn’t help that Health Canada’s data on the radioactive fallout from Fukushima is so sparse and confusingly reported that it’s hard to figure out whether or not it exceeds government limits.

Health Canada reports on monitoring data for only three or four of the hundreds of radioactive substances spewing out of the crippled Japanese nuclear plant.

Canada also has only five monitoring stations that contain equipment sensitive enough to notice levels of specific radioactive substances from Fukushima in the air.

“They’re measuring only a fraction of the radioactive fallout from Fukushima,” said Gordon Edwards of the Canadian Coalition for Nuclear Responsibility, speaking from Montreal.

In contrast, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has 200 monitoring stations checking for up to 11 radioactive substances in everything from air and milk to drinking water and rainwater.

Health Canada’s radiation-monitoring webpage downplays any fallout concerns, saying radiation reaching Canada has been “within normal background levels”. That’s based largely on data from a second network of 35 other monitoring stations that have less sensitive equipment (including 12 in B.C.).

But an analysis of the data from these stations shows radiation levels did hit sustained above-normal levels for an average of 36 days in March and April after Fukushima. The radiation level rose to 0.48 microsieverts per day, on average, during this time, up from 0.43 seen in the rest of the monitoring data between March 10 and July 27—or an increase of 11 percent.

Of all the B.C. sites, the biggest spike was in Victoria, where the level rose from 0.23 to 0.25 microsieverts per day between March 19 and 25—an increase of 9.9 percent. Vancouver saw a four-percent increase, from 0.43 to 0.45 microsieverts.

The worst-hit city in Canada was Regina. It saw a 90-percent spike in its radiation level, from 0.36 to 0.69 microsieverts per day. Yellowknife was second-highest with a 31-percent jump, followed by Toronto with a 26-percent rise.

But this data downplays the radiation from Fukushima, Edwards said. The less sensitive equipment also picks up large amounts of background radiation from natural sources like the sun and soil.

It also doesn’t spot jumps in the type of radioactive substances released in a nuclear accident, like iodine-131. Another problem: sieverts are a questionable way to measure radiation because they include a subjective calculation of the radiation’s impact on a person, and so the results can be manipulated to play down impacts, Edwards said.

“It’s a shell game. Microsieverts are quite a distance removed from the raw data. They’re blending in stuff from nature to make the data look innocuous,” he says.

You have to scroll down to the bottom of Health Canada’s radiation webpage to find the more striking data from the five stations monitoring specific radioactive substances.

This data shows the air at the five stations contained an average of 33.3 millibecquerels of radioactive iodine per cubic metre during 30.4 days of elevated radiation.

That works out to double the 16.7 millibecquerels per cubic metre of iodine-131 that would be permitted over those 30.4 days, according to the maximum limit set by the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission. (The commission’s ceiling is 200 millibecquerels per cubic metre of exposure in the air on a daily basis for an entire year. That equates to 16.7 millibecquerels per cubic metre over 30.4 days.)

The station in Sidney, B.C., detected 19.4 millibecquerels per cubic metre of iodine-131 in the air during a 22-day-long spike in radiation. That was 61 percent higher than the maximum dose of 12.1 millibecquerels per cubic metre permitted for 22 days.

Kelowna BC receives High Fukushima Fallout Radioactive Rain

Dangerous Radioactive rain in Lake Louise, AB

On June 26, 1954, at Obninsk, Russia, the nuclear power plant APS-1 with a net electrical output of 5 MW was connected to the power grid, the world’s first nuclear power plant that generated electricity for commercial use. On August 27, 1956 the first commercial nuclear power plant, Calder Hall 1, Eng-land, with a net electrical output of 50 MW was connected to the national grid.

As of August 7, 2011 in 30 countries 432 nuclear power plant units with an installed electric net capacity of about 366 GW are in operation and 65 plants with an installed capacity of 65 GW are in 16 countries under construction.

As of end 2009 the total electricity production since 1951 amounts to 64,600 billion kWh. The cumulative operating experience amounted to 14,570 years by August 2011.